All Blue Ragtime
by Piccylo
Summary: Zeff clawed his way up from the rubbish, a child of poverty and crime in order to survive, watching the backs of big-name chefs from the backdoor and dreaming about fresh ingredients… Losing a leg really isn’t so bad when you put things in perspective.
1. Stove Top

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, nor do I have any sort of affiliation with Shonen Jump, Toei, Oda Eiichiro, FUNimation, or 4kids. This fic will have lots of violence, crime, cursing, and most likely alcohol knowing me. This story is _very_ OC heavy, as a warning.

I know, I know; I've been gone a while, my friends. And just where have I been? I've been busy! I've had one thing followed by another, topped off with the birth of my baby nephew. He's very adorable, and he requires attention. This fic is for The Muse Bunny Forum's Story Convention. I'll try to make _this_ my weekly update for a while.

* * *

Sometimes, my right leg will hurt where the wooden peg is. _Phantom pains_ most people call it. I think of it as the pain of nostalgia, because it always seems to hurt whenever I'm thinking about the old days. It's not a bad pain; comparable to the mild sort of heartache and warm sting to the eye most people would get when they see an old photo. I used to get that feeling whenever I looked over the old logbook. Now I get an ache where my right leg was. I don't think about it much.

I crawled up from the very bottom to get where I am today. Some people think my position now is a lesser one than what I could have gotten if I kept my legs. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. But how many people have held the dream of owning their own restaurant and never achieve it? I know how many, and those people would gladly give up _their_ right legs to stand where I am.

I am an old man, only getting older, from an age that those young brat pirates can hardly understand. I met the _Jolly Roger_ pirates. I've been through the Grand Line. I've done things that people now could only proclaim as experiencing Hell itself. Maybe it was better then because there were less pirates swarming over similar goals; maybe it was _worse _because there was no easy path stomped-out for me by predecessors. I don't know, and it doesn't matter in the end. The Grand Line didn't mean the same thing to me as it did others.

_All Blue._

If that place were anywhere, then it would have to be there.

.-.-.

If you believe I started out immediately on the sea in a pirate ship as a captain, then you should also know that Gold Roger sprung forth fully formed from the womb and Hawkeye Mihawk did his own C-section. I grew up in a port-city in North Blue named Pakerville. It's one of the major cities in North Blue, and it had every glory and problem that any big city will get. A great place if you're rich, if you could afford to go to all of the places that go out of their way to avert your eyes from how distorted the population really is. There were a lot of rich people, about ten or twenty times that in poor people, and just enough in between to hide the gap from the tourists.

Winter was cold there, but you get used to it. If you grow up in this weather, you'll hardly notice any sort of change. The winter of my sixth birthday was particularly harsh, and I was still young enough for it to effect me. I had come home feeling numb with a pair of aching small lungs that had felt the cold air expand a little too much while I exerted myself with the activity of being a child.

The house was warm with grandmother's large, old stove running. A delicious aroma soaked the entire house, trapped inside by the cold air pressing down on it. I smiled so wide my numb face hurt with the effort and I knocked off my heavy clothes dampening with the melt of the snow on it as quickly as I could at the door before running into the kitchen, to my grandmother's side.

My grandmother used to be an immense woman who enjoyed cooking and food more than anyone I ever knew. Times were hitting her hard, however, and she had to sacrifice her love a little bit in order to support me. She was now merely rather plump, and her hands that looked so round and healthy in old pictures were now getting scrawny and arthritis-ridden. As a result, she would have to stop frequently to rub her hands or soak them in warm water, to soothe the ache.

She was warming her hands when I came in, in a pot of water on the stove. The hot water must have been out again. I tugged her skirts. "Grams, you started without me!"

Grams looked down at me and smiled with as much warmth as the house had. She pulled her hands out of the water and dried them. "Sorry, Zeffie. The roast takes several hours and I didn't want to interrupt your play with the other kids."

I huffed indignantly. "The other kids don't matter. I want to cook. You promised!"

She laughed. "I'm sorry I broke my promise, Little Eggplant. But you shouldn't dismiss the other children; you need companionship. You need a childhood like everyone else."

"I don't wanna childhood! I don't need companionship!" I continued in my childish, inconsolable fit and twisted my lips. My hands tucked under my arms when I crossed them.

Grams didn't seem at all perturbed, still smiling and now turning her attention to the counter top. "Friends are very important, Zeffie. Even the people that seem most independent have had nakama through their lives. It's important to be strong and reliable, but your strength isn't only for yourself."

I frowned, feeling like I was ignored. That was erased immediately when she turned back to me and said, "Why don't you cut these vegetables for me?"

I smiled and excitedly pulled my stool out beside her and climbed it. She gently pushed the cutting board and vegetables over to me, and I picked up the knife confidently and began to chop away. Most kids my age would have cut themselves or started playing with the knife, but I knew better. I knew better because Grams was careful to teach me how to use a knife properly, and how to treat it with respect.

I was halfway through cutting the first leek before I noticed it was slim, cylindrical, and over all a very nice quality. Grams had been teaching me how to pick out good ingredients, but I frequently noted that we couldn't afford the best things, so one had to be even more careful choosing. However, this was an expensive leek, and it was in very good quality. Grams was watching my amazement through the corner of her twinkling eye as she tended to the pot. I continued to cut up the vegetables, noticing that each and every one were superb varieties, most of them rarely found or grown in the area, and all perfect in freshness and ripeness.

When I was done, she bid me over to her and asked me to put the vegetables in the pot. As she opened the lid for me to drop the vegetables in, the steam burst into my face, carrying the roast's aroma. The scent of bay leaves, rosemary, and some spices I've never smelled before hit me the hardest. I was so stunned that I almost forgot to drop in the vegetables. Where did she get these ingredients? The place she worked kitchen wasn't _that_ fancy, and even if it was, they'd never let her bring any home!

She read my thoughts. "There was a trader that came into port today that's a good friend of mine. He gave me these ingredients for cheap, you see. Wonderful ingredients. You can't get these sorts of things here; you can only get them close to the Calm Belt."

I was marveling at this aroma for a while before I realized she hadn't replaced the pot lid. I looked to see she was already soaking her hands in water again. So I replaced the lid myself and climbed down the stool, scooting it back to where it belonged.

"Grams," I said, wiping away what I had decided was steam that got in my eyes, "Let me get the roast out and cut it and serve it when it's done. I can get it for you!" That might have been the first thing I ever said that I truly meant down to my core.

She looked down at me and smiled. She looked more jovial than usual, and she was already always the optimistic sort of old bird. I think the expensive ingredients raised her cheeks a bit. No, that's not right. I think being able to _use _those ingredients with me was what made her happy. "All right, Zeffie. Thank you."

I did as I said, and then I cleaned the dishes and the stove afterwards. At the time, I thought I was just showing her that I could do things on my own, that I was strong and independent. In truth, I know now, I just wanted to help her and comfort her, and let her know that she could count on me.

.-.-.

I heard so many stories about All Blue as I grew up, and more than half of these stories were from my grandmother. Perhaps she simply thought this sort of fairy tale would be able to satisfy a boy like I was, playfully filling my head with childish wonder. Perhaps she didn't believe a word that she herself said of it, and hid her real thoughts about it to further encourage my own imagination. I doubt that, but I'll never be sure.

But her eye twinkled when she told me those stories, when she told me that no one knows where the place is. My head filled with possibilities. The All Blue! Where could it be? I wanted to find out. So early on, the dream was etched into my heart: to find the All Blue. It would be a monumental discovery! Imagine… North Blue Black Cod in a buttery, lemony East Blue Hard Crab sauce topped with some roe from the South Blue Sea Salmon. Just thinking about all the dishes (even when I was a stupid child and didn't yet know proper composition) that would be possible made my mouth water.

Other kids, of course, didn't understand. I mostly didn't get along with other kids, outside of Gauzi, who lived by the pier. He was excitable and hyper and probably the only other child that could keep up with me and my brutishness. He didn't believe there was an All Blue, either, and I don't think he really cared, but he did share with me a love of food—even if his love was more of the eating side than the cooking. He wasn't plump, though; since he was so active, it became all fuel, and he was growing into his fisherman father's broad shoulders. Most of the other kids thought he was older just because he was so big for his age, and a lot of them were terrified of him. I was the only one that wasn't, so I guess our friendship came about because we we're the only kids the other could get along with.

The day following when Grams brought in those fresh, exotic ingredients, I had been daydreaming while I wandered near the pier. I had nothing better to do, and today Grams had to stay late in the restaurant to work, so I couldn't go home yet. I was deep embedded in imagining what West Blue bay scallops might taste like when I felt Gauzi's large, heavy hand slam down on my back.

"Zeff! What'cha doin' just hanging around here? Kids aren't s'posed to hang near the docks at night alone!" He laughed. I started laughing too.

"Your dad's out late to fish again?"

"Yep. Donno when he's comin' in this time. He's been goin' out a lot lately, even though it's so cold. He wears lots of warm, dark clothing, though."

"Yeah, I heard clothing's warmer if its dark. I can't go home for a few hours yet 'cuz Grams is working."

"Really? Maybe we can drop by the restaurant and have her sneak us some scraps!"

Normally I wouldn't listen to Gauzi's suggestions; I was the one to think up something to do since I was the smarter of the two of us. But this seemed like a good enough idea since this was the weekend and they were probably going to have leftovers anyway. We rushed downtown.

The kitchen clattered so much, filled with sizzling and yelling and clanging pots to the point that it was almost too much for my ears, but it made for good cover for sneaking in from the backdoor without anyone noticing. We probably could have gone in and out without problem as long as we weren't directly underfoot, but we always acted like we had to be sneaky and would hush each other as we lurked about the cabinets and stoves and sinks. It's still like looking through a forest of legs when you're that age. We searched for a good fifteen minutes before we saw her one long, gray braid moving stiffly across her back with every movement of her head. We dodged behind the counters and moved up.

Our legs stretched up and we peered over the top of the table my grandmother was mixing up ingredients on, looking across it at her. She started when we did, but she smiled at us and continued mixing. "And what is it that you boys are here for? Leftovers again?"

Our grins went wide and we nodded.

With a laugh and her eyes crinkled up in her smile, she turned away over to a different table, transferred some items from returned plates into a couple of bags, and came back. "New buttery cheese bread sticks with garlic, and I put some chocolate treats in the other bag. Don't eat all of it; give some to your father, Gauzi!"

Gauzi nodded, still smiling. "Yes, ma'am!"

"And what do we say?"

"Thank you!" we both chimed in unison before she waved us away in a playful shooing motion. We scrambled out of the kitchen and ran back to the pier.

We ate the bread and the small chocolate cake-like treats quickly and set aside a portion in Gauzi's house before we went to play. The evening dipped in pretty dark before we realized how late it was, so we ran back to his house first so that his father wouldn't yell at him. We hoped that maybe the treat would have calmed him enough that we wouldn't be too badly scolded.

The food hadn't been touched since we left. It was still so late and his father hadn't even come in yet. Gauzi looked confused and worried.

"I'm sure your dad's just working late again."

"I guess," he mumbled. He didn't appear consoled. I wasn't sure what else I could say, so I said goodnight and ran back home. Grams might have been a bit miffed about me coming home late and walking through the piers at night alone, but any memory of her berating me then doesn't come to mind. I only remember that I was worried for Gauzi.


	2. Blue Hercules Lobster

Disclaimer: Chapter one.

First list of the convention! The five words and phrases from it are used throughout the chapter. If you want, you could find the list on The Muse Bunny and go along looking for where I used them.

* * *

The next day, I was greeted with an even stranger dish for dinner: horned, blue lobster that looked more like a humongous beetle with pincers than a shellfish. Grams smiled broadly as I looked upon it with wide, confused eyes, wondering what on earth this creature was and how I was supposed to crack it open with that weird-looking shell.

"Oh, Little Eggplant!" She shook her head laughing. "Just pull it apart from the seam down the middle. See?" She reached over the table and pried apart the shell with her own bare hands, revealing the white, steaming flesh beneath. It's aroma reached me, and my mouth instantly filled with saliva. It was really too bad that I missed her cooking it, because it smelled like she used some exotic spices this time as well.

"Fresh from the boat! This was the smallest one, so they were selling the little guy cheaper. But he's still in good condition. He was running around the kitchen quite a bit, though, so I had to put him out of his misery before you got home."

Looking back, that was a terrible lie; we'd kept shellfish alive of every kind in that kitchen without having any trouble containing them before, but I was young then and didn't know that Blue Hercules Lobster moved and acted like any other lobster. I took her word for gospel and proceeded to tuck a napkin in my collar.

That lobster was absolutely delicious. Perhaps I took good food for granted then because Grams was such a wonderful cook, but I still remember that particular dinner very well, down to the tangy, savory butter sauce with finely ground nutmeg that I soaked up from my plate with a roll. After having my fill, I got up and put on my snow boots and coat, saying goodbye. I was going to go see Gauzi.

"All right, Zeffie. Be careful, now."

I gave a little start when she said that; despite how dangerous the pier is supposed to be, she never gave a warning before when I went off by myself. But she didn't offer any more when I looked back at her, so I wrote it off and went on my way.

An hour went by of me stamping through the snow alone (making shapes and figures in it along the way) before I was finally able to find Gauzi. He was huddled behind a snow mound as if he was playing hide-and-seek or keeping cover for a snowball fight. His head poked over like he was trying to get a look at his opponent. I thought about strolling up and greeting him, but if he was hiding from another kid, I didn't want to give away his position. I sneaked right up beside him. "Hey, Gauzi."

Gauzi nearly jumped out of his skin and over the snow mound when I spoke, and had to cover his own mouth so that he wouldn't shout out. He looked over at me in total surprise that turned into a mix of relief and anger. "Zeff!" he hissed. "Don't sneak up on me like that, will ya'?"

"Who're ya' hiding from?" I whispered back.

He frowned worriedly and gestured over the snow. I poked my head up and saw two men having a conversation; a burlier, shorter man and a tall, stick-like one. The stick held some pad under his arm. The bearish man chewed on the tip of his stubbed cigar angrily while he growled on in his speech.

"As I was saying, this sort of thing is impossible without…" The stick man stopped abruptly. "Colden… Are you chewing? You know I hate chewers."

Colden growled around his cigar. "Lay off, Clyde. This business makes me nervous. It's not like I'm chewing tobacco."

"You very much _are_ chewing tobacco," Clyde responded with his snooty, ineffectual tone. "Those over-expensive and aromatically-offensive cigars of yours are wrapped tobacco leaves."

"I mean I'm not hocking it up everywhere. You need to get over your spit-phobia, Clyde."

"It is _not_ a 'spit phobia'," he responded, but didn't offer any further comment. They went still for a moment before he took a glance at his watch. "Ah, I think enough time has passed. Let's go visit on our dear friend Torzi, shall we?"

I looked over to Gauzi, surprised by what I just heard. "What did he just say?"

"Shh!" he spat at me.

Colden grinned a wide, vicious smile and tossed away his smoldering cigar stub into some dirty slush. It went out with a fizzle. "Yeah, I think your right. Let's go." The two men started to leave. Gauzi got up to shadow them, and I was forced to follow Gauzi. They led us to one of the large, dilapidated buildings that used to be a respectable hotel before bigger and better hotels opened up farther from the docks and the fish smell. As we trailed them in, we both felt a profound sense of dread, accentuated when we saw Gauzi pick up a crowbar from a table and whack it in his other hand a few times, chuckling to himself.

Gauzi swallowed hard and whispered, "Uh, Z-Zeff?"

"What?"

"W-we aren't going to… ya' know…"

"Know what?"

"We won't be skipping off into the sunset anytime soon, will we?"

I looked at him with profound confusion. "_Huh?_"

"You know…" he made a cutting motion on his neck accompanied with the _chhhlck!_ sound.

"Stupid!" I hissed, shaking in fear but fronting anger at his mistake on an already idiotic euphemism, "It's 'riding off into the sunset' you know!" I shook my head. "Why are we following them? How do they know your dad?"

"I dunno. I saw 'im talk with them before, but I didn't listen in. He's been missing since last night and I didn't know where he was. But I heard them talking about him before you showed up and thought maybe they knew something so I followed." He frowned. "I think… I think I shouldn't 'a done that, now. I shouldn't 'a gotten ya' into it, either."

Maybe I should have been upset at Gauzi for dragging me into it, but it was exciting, even if I was shivering in my shoes. "Don't worry about it. We have to find your dad, right?" The two men started walking again, and we continued to follow. After a bit of a walk, they came to the door for the stairs, strangely locked. Clyde unlocked it and gestured Colden to go in ahead. Colden stomped without patience into the stairwell and, from what we could tell from our vantage point, down the stairs. Clyde followed in and locked the door behind him.

"_Now_ what are we gonna do?" Gauzi whined, "We can't go home yet!"

"We'll have to find another way." I started looking around for another door to the stairwell, but Gauzi found something first; an old laundry chute. There was one thing wrong with it, though.

"There's a hole at the top!" I said, "We'll plummet down who knows how far!"

"I can get over it," he said. He was tall enough to stretch over it, unlike myself. "Then I'll help you. Okay?"

"No way!" I shook my head. "I'm finding a different way!"

"Suit yourself. I'm gonna go this way." With that, he went in.

It didn't take much searching before I discovered another opening in the walls; it had a feather duster, some odd sink dishes, and an old spray bottle in it. A rope was handing down the middle, strung through two holes. I couldn't see the back for the darkness in the building, so I crawled in, thinking it was just another laundry chute, but in better repair.

The floor gave out under me and I plummeted down into the basement shrieking. The rope zipped past my cheek as I went, and I fell back into the wall to avoid getting a painful rope burn on my face, then guarded my head with my arms from the flying dishes. The little chamber I was in landed more softly than I expected, but all the odd cleaning objects slammed about the space and myself. I panicked and yelled for help.

A few seconds later, I heard Gauzi's voice on the other side of what I thought was a wall. "Zeff?"

"Gauzi! Help!"

A pause. "Don't scare me Zeff! Why don't you come out of where you're hiding?"

"…because I'm trapped in an elevator, that's why." I growled in exasperation. Of course, I didn't know it was called a _dumbwaiter _at the time, but I doubt Gauzi did, either, so knowing wouldn't have helped him find me.

The description did well enough, anyway. "OH!" The door slid up into the wall, and Gauzi was rewarded with the sight of myself wearing a feather duster on my head and a black eye from a soap dish. He helped me out, asked if I was okay, and led me to an opposite part of the basement. We quickly found voices wafting through the otherwise still halls and storage rooms and followed them to an area full of random junk, water tanks, and odd assortments of (mostly broken) hotel furniture.

The two men were there with Gauzi's dad, Torzi. Torzi was blindfolded and tied to a chair. We hid behind a tank and leaned our ears in to listen.

"Sometimes you can be quite a pain." Clyde made a sigh. "Do you know how crucial it is that the authorities don't find out about what we've been doing? If you keep using the same boat for delivery as you do for fishing, they're going to take notice."

"The delivery boat is out of commission again," Torzi moaned. "I can't use it."

Colden huffed in anger and slammed his crowbar on the leg of Torzi's chair, making him jump in his binds. "Don't play around, Torzi! Doing shit like that will get us caught!"

"Calm yourself, Colden," Clyde lightly chastised.

"To hell with that!" Colden pulled out a gun from his coat and drew it on Torzi, pointing it against his head. There was a click, and a silence. "Damn useless piece of junk!"

Clyde didn't appear surprised, or at all perturbed by Colden's behavior. "I told you the spring on the firing pin needed replaced. Listen more often."

Colden muttered angrily and started taking apart the gun to get to the firing pin. There must have still been some strength in that coil, because a metal helix flew out from his hands and rolled over to us, right at our feet. I was seized with fear, and so was Gauzi as he threw his arms around me and whimpered. The burly man cursed loudly and was about to follow after it when Clyde stopped him.

"You'll never find it down here with this bad light and all this junk. I told you it needed replacing anyway. Leave it."

Colden grumbled some more. The stick man ignored it and pulled out a small sketch book. "Now, Torzi, I'm going to draw out a new route for you. Take this until you get the other boat fixed. I don't want to have to tie you up for a day away from your dependent son again, and I'm sure you don't want _Colden _to aim a working pistol at your head. Understood?"

"...Yessir. Crystal clear." His voice sounded like his throat was extremely dry.

"Good." He drew what he needed to quickly and ripped the paper from the sketch book. Colden unbound the man. "Now, you will need to be briefed on this new shipment that you're taking over. The person that usually runs it will run your old one, and I want you to explain to each other, in as few words as possible, of course. I'll introduce you myself…" Clyde continued. "Will I see you tomorrow?"

"Yessir," Torzi said and swallowed hard, eyes free from the blindfold now. He rubbed his wide wrists with his hands. They were bruised.

"Very good! I'd hate to lose a good earner such as yourself. I think we're done here, Mr. Colden. Let's let Mr. Torzi walk himself home. His little boy must be worried."

If there was anything else to the conversation, we missed it. We had to leave immediately; Gauzi had to run and get home before his father realized we were gone. We agreed to keep the whole thing a secret. His father, nor my grandmother, could ever know that we saw that whole exchange, and we'd get in trouble for being somewhere we shouldn't anyway. On top of that, we concluded that maybe the stick man wouldn't mind if he found us out, but the large one certainly didn't look like the forgiving type. We didn't think "Colden" would sit still knowing a couple of kids spied in on their activities.

I walked home slowly after I left Gauzi; I was still shaking and I didn't want Grams to see and ask questions. Along the way, I saw a strange, blue beetle that looked suspiciously like the lobster dinner I had earlier that evening. It was skittering and burrowing in the one pure spot of white snow among all the dirty slosh in the road. This struck me as very strange—a bug like that in the cold—and the puzzle cleared my mind of my fearful adventure. I followed after it and chased it through the snow until it finally shook the wet off its wings and flew away to the rooftops. In good spirits, I returned home shortly after.

"I'm home!" I called, kicking off my muddied snow boots.

Grams' good-natured voice came from the kitchen. "I was wondering when you'd be back, you rascal eggplant! Where have you been?"

I pried off my coat, now soaked from melted snow. "I saw a beetle that looked like the lobster just now, so I followed it!" This I said immediately since it was the first thing honestly on my mind. I followed her voice and saw that she was warming her hands in water over the stove again. "Grams, why don't you wear gloves if your hands are so cold?"

She laughed. "It's more than the cold, dear. My hands are hurting a little with the arthritis. I guess that's what I get for abusing them, right? The winter cold just doesn't help."

"Oh. Okay." The answer wasn't really satisfying but I wasn't going to question it. Besides, she had marshmallow cookies all ready for me for when I got home, and I inhaled them with childish greed. How easily distracted we are in our youth!


	3. Are You Hungry?

Disclaimer: See chapter one, plox.

Okay, I know it's late. I could blame it a little bit on the fact that the prompt came on the day I was supposed to update, but I won't; I knew it'd be late and I should have been working on a backup chapter for another fic. Instead, I shall blame it on my lack of time; work (where I do a lot of my writing) is currently in the "rush" period. And at home, I have to help care for the baby nephew.

* * *

My wooden leg aches especially when I think of watching those chefs in the high-class restaurant performing their _sophisticated culinary art_. Within a year, I had changed from nosing around Grams' workplace to sneaking through the kitchen of the most popular—and most expensive—restaurants in the city. This wasn't by choice, really; Grams was too old, she said, to work anymore, so I couldn't roam around that kitchen anymore. But she eventually pulled me aside and told me the real reason she quit work:

"There's something you should keep in mind if you want to be a class-cook, Little Eggplant," she said as she rubbed her fingers against each other, every one of them knotted and gnarled from arthritis, "And that thing is to keep good care of your hands. Like a musician or an artist, if your hands are crippled, your very identity is crippled. They must always be quick and nimble and steady… not bruised or marred or strained. Do you understand?"

I nodded quickly, proclaiming that I did. I suppose I did superficially then. When food became hard to come by, both because she couldn't work and couldn't prepare it, the full realization grew to dawn on me.

I now watched the kitchens of restaurants for food I could steal, for I knew them more than well enough from how much I had sneaked around Grams. A loaf of fresh French bread, a plate of dry-rubbed ribs, or just ingredients from their pantry so that I could make our meals… I became quite adept and coming and going, unseen, among the hurried cooks. They caught me sometimes, but it was most often a different chef each time, and they always assumed I was the new busboy. Further still, there would be times that I couldn't manage this—when it was closed or when I couldn't find a good time to sneak in—so there were days that we could go hungry if I didn't prepare stock.

So, pretty much, I was able to keep the need for a food budget at bay with our growing debts, but we were still in want for money otherwise. The warmer seasons came, so paying for heat was not an issue, but my clothes were becoming too small and threadbare for me, and we soon had to ration water and soap.

This was "solved" by my frequent visits to my only good friend Gauzi. His father Torzi was starting to do better financially, and had rather suddenly gone from poor fisherman with two rundown boats to secure entrepreneur with a modest fleet and a dozen employees in the matter of months. I came to understand why soon afterwards, because as Torzi became more and more successful, I saw the two men Colden and Clyde more often around, usually speaking with him casually as friends sharing business interests. It was hard for us to act natural around the two gangsters, so it was hard to warm up to them. But we did in the coming months as we learned about them.

Although the bearish man Colden had a more fierce temper and an obviously shorter fuse, he was actually very warm towards Gauzi and myself. Turns out that he's the passionate sort of man that's easily carried away in one emotion or another, and he happened to like kids quite well. He could be friendly, and even jovial, and it was hard to imagine for a little while that he was the same man who threatened Torzi's life with a gun. Clyde, on the other hand, though a very polite and patient man, turned out to be the cold sort of worker who you could imagine selling out his own mother if it meant he had a matching cufflink for his pinstriped suit. Assassins or children, tigers or puppies… it didn't matter to him. Only the bottom line carried any importance. I quickly learned to not trust him.

How they fit into my own situation comes from a particular summer day. I was walking to visit Gauzi after being disappointed from the restaurant I was planning to lift from being forced to closed due to an unfortunate accident. I mumbled and grumbled as I walked, "Maaaan. I hate it when ovens explode." It was the second time that month, I think; they really needed to clean the damn things more often so this wouldn't happen.

I heard a familiar voice ranting as I walked. "Congratulations. You are now a class-A jerk." I looked and saw Clyde huffing in his mighty businessman, keep-it-in-the-black air to Colden. He continued, "He tossed us out because of _your_ licentious and quite frankly rude sniffing around. That was his sister, you know!"

Colden kept a wide grin on his face, which was unperturbed by Clyde's reprimand. "It was worth it. She's an absolute looker, that gal is. If you saw her, you'd agree with me."

"You went far beyond protocol doing that! We could lose our heads if you don't keep yourself in check! You'd best never do something like this again."

"Fine, fine." He laughed. "I solemnly swear never to peek on girls in the shower. However, I won't look away if they leave the door open." The last part was added as a happy afterthought.

"_Ass_." Clyde rolled his eyes. "The whole reason we went in there was for you to find the papers while I distracted him. But, of course, _you _completely forget what you needed to do to look at ogle a girl."

"I didn't forget. I was honestly looking for it. I just got a little… preoccupied."

"You didn't have to _look_ for it! We knew where it was!" Clyde gave a final sigh of exasperation. "Honestly! Can't you do anything right?"

Colden might have finally gotten worked up into his own explosion to retort by this point if they hadn't noticed me watching them broadcasting their conversation. We were still in the less populated part of the pier-area, and they gave a bit of a start when they found out someone heard them. They relaxed immediately when they saw it was only me; they had already tagged me as a safe (i.e. trustworthy) subject, I found later.

"Well, if it isn't little Zeff the Chef!" Colden broke out with a smile. He strolled up to rub my head good-naturedly. "Not making dinner for your gramma today, kid?"

I shook my head. "No. Couldn't get the food to cook today, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow…" I blurted that last bit out before I realized it, then immediately wanted to smack myself.

"What? Can't get food today? But there are still some venders open selling food, aren't there?"

"Umm…" I swallowed.

Clyde sighed. "Haven't you seen how thin he's been getting, Colden? Or how ragged his clothing is? Never the perceptive one, _honestly_… Little Zeff's grandmother hasn't been able to work. Likely he's been stealing food from those restaurants he likes to watch chefs cook in."

"Really?" He looked at Clyde in honest surprise and looked back down to me, examining me. "… I guess your right, Clyde. He is thin for a boy who likes cooking, isn't he?"

I fidgeted. "I'm…uhh… just coming up to visit Gauzi, but I just remembered Grams might want me home early today. I should go." I turned to run.

But I heard Clyde say, "Wait a minute." I stopped and turned as he walked up to me.

Colden watched Clyde in confusion. "The kid said he needed to go home. Let him back to his gramma."

"Just a moment, Colden." He kneeled his tall frame down some to appear closer to my eye level, but he still towered over me. "Zeff, do you want to earn a little money to help your grandmother out?"

I was silent for a moment, unsure about how I should answer, and very wary of the stickman's nature. But I nodded.

"You're pretty good at sneaking through places, right? Mr. Colden here was supposed to get some papers from a friend of ours earlier this evening… some special papers that our friend mustn't know we need to borrow. Do you think that you could retrieve these documents for me? I'll give you ten thousand whole beli."

My eyes widened. I never handled so much money, and I only saw it when Grams had to count what she had for budget… and it was a while ago when she had that much to budget. I said, "okay," before I even realized it.

Clyde gave a smile. "Good boy, Zeff. I'll tell you where to go. Just follow my instructions. Here," He pulled out his wallet and handed me a five thousand beli bill. Ichiro Kumaguchi's bearish face and mustache stared back at me. "That's half. I'll give you the other half when you get back to me."

This was the first time I had to sneak into a place that wasn't a kitchen, so I was nervous as I walked to the house I needed to break into. I thought several times about running back home with the five thousand beli, or even going back and returning the beli to Clyde so that he wouldn't bother me again. But the bill in my pocket burned, and every time I thought about it, I thought about how much we needed the money. _Food_, I thought,_ might not be a problem if I can pick it up, but what about everything else?_

The house I was directed to was in the upper-class area of the city where various rich families keep their mansions, and it happened to be one of the mansions. The iron gate was daunting, of course, but, as Clyde predicted, I was small enough to squeeze through the bars without any trouble.

The house had so many bushes and other plants on its land that sneaking around in the dark was no trouble, either. There were no guards (if there were, I think I would have seriously pissed myself right there), but there were house servants that Clyde warned me to be careful of. Since it was night, they hardly had any reason to be in the garden. Finding an open window on the first floor to an unguarded room was surprisingly easy as well. Upon entering it, I found it was left open to allow the freshly painted room to air out… the owner was redecorating. The door to the hallway was also ajar. How laughably simple it was compared to sneaking food everyday, and every bit of the layout just as Clyde said. I was lead by the hand through this crime via his instructions and I soon felt my confidence growing.

Sneaking through the hallway was much more tough. It was lit and servants walked to and fro almost as if the walkways were well-traveled streets, and there was no way I could walk through casually since a random child walking through their master's house had no justification. It was slow progress running up to different rooms farther along the hall and falling back, undergoing my own personal trench war within some maids in a rich man's home. I wouldn't have had the patience for such a thing if I wasn't scared witless of getting caught.

I soon enough reached the room that held the prize. Apparently, the owner of the house either traveled extensively or just really enjoyed cartography as a hobby. Either way, the room was lined with large maps and shelves of scrolled maps, with a large, antique globe, finely painted and detailed, stood regally on its dark wooden stand. I looked around in wonderment, stunned in my utter, childish awe.

I cautiously approached the globe and placed a hand on it. I've heard about the basic way that the world was set up before: four oceans split apart by the Red Line and the Grand Line. This globe had the lines notated in with large, illustrious letters, done with perfect hand calligraphy, similar with the four oceans themselves. Continents, countries, and major cities were also delicately written in. I made only a passing glance to Pakerville before I searched for a place where the four oceans might coincide.

The All Blue.

Logically, one would claim it wouldn't make any sense. Not only is the Grand Line protected by the two Calm Belts that disallow anything to enter through by lack of wind and current (as well as the great amount of Sea Kings) but the world was entirely split in two by the continental mass of the Red Line. And yet, as I examined it, I thought some more about it.

A ship could breach the Red Line, and the important areas were plotted out here. One method was by Reverse Mountain, and this detailed globe even notated the major currents of the world, including those on Reverse Mountain. If a ship can pass via water, then so can the water and everything else within it. Then there was the hole running under the continent, populated with the fishmen and itself called Fishman Island. 10,000 meters deep is a good distance for most fish, but its still a through point of water and the fishmen don't seem to mind it all that much. And if there are two such breaches… perhaps…

The All Blue… if it's anywhere, I decided, it has to be in the Grand Line. I lost myself, staring long into the face of my dream that was so intricately painted out before me. So absorbed was I that I jumped out of my skin when I heard voices much closer than they should have been. I whirled around and realized someone was coming to the room, then flew under a writing desk and huddled as well as I could to not be seen.

From the hiding spot I chose, I could only see the legs of the people who entered—one person in gray suit pants with loafers and another in a gauzy skirt and heels—but I heard them talking well enough.

"I can't stand them!" the woman raved, "Oh sure, Skinny Bones is polite enough, but that horrid bear of a partner is abhorrent! I don't understand why you insist working with them…"

"They're good businessmen, Sis, and they speak for someone higher you know. Besides, I was talking to Clyde… Colden excused himself to go to the bathroom at that point. He probably just took a wrong turn and thought your room was the W.C."

"Looking for the bathroom, I'm sure! If only I could put an alarm on my bedroom door… that went off whenever some lecher prowled nearby!"

He gave a laugh. "Maybe they'll invent such a thing someday."

"Don't you mock me!" She huffed and snatched something from the shelves. "I'm going back to my room to work. And I'm locking the door!"

"Of course, Sis. Goodnight." They departed the room together, but the footsteps went separate directions down the hall. I waited in my spot for several minutes before I peaked out and around, then searched for the papers. It wasn't hard to find them; they were in the drawers of a small table, each stamped with the picture of a green, knotted rope as Clyde described. I rolled them up, stuffed them under my shirt, and went back the arduous journey out, the same way I came in.

I don't know how late it was when I got back home, because Grams was still up and waiting for me to return and she sent me straight to bed, but I was ten thousand beli richer and an agent in one of the biggest crime syndicates in Pakerville.

* * *

With the flexing schedule from the convention at times, Fridays may or may not be my weekly update day depending on how the prompts come up. If I manage a chapter of another fic during this time, I'll try to have that update on Fridays while this fic goes (so possibility of extra updates).


	4. Slow Rise

Disclaimer: O HAI IM IN CHAPTER1 LAWL

A little short for my taste, but here it is.

* * *

I know what you're thinking; you're thinking this organization was something like Crocodile's Baroque Works. Well, you can push that silly thought right outta your head because they're _nothing alike_. Crocodile was, from what I heard, using his group for the single purpose of taking over a kingdom, and he used various fruit-users for this since he was, after all, in the Grand Line. But the Fleeholds worked more as an adopted family-group that had their fingers spread out and touching vital points, keeping their supply of money fluidly running through their territory. It ensured all its members knew respect and were given proper respect in kind. For all purposes, it really _was _a family, and was often called such... _the Fleehold Family_.

But both have a leader either way, and Fleehold's father figure was the illustrious Gottanno Thom (commonly known by his nickname "Quarter Thom"). He was an obese man with grandiose handlebars, always clearing his throat with a rolling cough, and was made something into a national celebrity since everyone _knew_ about the Fleeholds even while none of the Fleeholds would admit it even _existed _to the public.

I was introduced to him after I did three more jobs for Clyde and Colden that had been similar to what I did that summer night. I was brought, along with Torzi and Gauzi, to some fancy gala. Colden even bought me some proper clothes for the stupid thing, so not only did I feel out of place, but I felt uncomfortable and stiff to boot. I stuck stubbornly by Gauzi the whole time, trying to avoid the shifting, sequined skirts and the fumbling legs of men who already had too many glasses of wine, all chattering away about things I was too young to understand or even care about. There was a plus in that the hors d'ouvres were really tasty. The first time I had a cucumber sandwich was there, and I remember how surprisingly crisp and light it was for something with so many ingredients.

Quarter Thom came fashionably late, riding in from a carriage that appeared like a royal chariot. He stepped out its doors wearing his signature blue velveteen cape and carrying an umbrella he used as a walking stick. His gray, wispy mustaches twitched and he strode in with the sort of confidence owned by a man who had a firm grasp at the world that he designed personally.

Immediately he was approached by several of his men, including Clyde and Colden, leaving me with Gauzi and Torzi. I gave a sigh of relief; Clyde had been watching me like a hawk, making sure that I wasn't going to embarrass him or get myself in trouble up to this point and slapping my hand from anything alcoholic, and that's just stressful on a kid of my age. Gauzi and I quickly took this advantage to run off to play. That's how we spent most of the party, by avoiding the adults for our own fun.

But our merry-making didn't get to last, really. At some point Clyde did find us and plucked us both up by the collar without a word or explanation, taking us up before Quarter Thom himself. This scared the hell out of me and I don't even know how Gauzi took it.

"So the big one is Torzi's kid, eh?" He looked down at Gauzi with a thoughtful stare. "I see the resemblance. I'm sure he'll become a fine man later."

"I would bet on it, Thom," Clyde answered, his eyes and demeanor already disregarding us even though he was the one who dragged us there, "He's very strong for his age and already helps out his father with many of the deliveries."

"And this other kid… What did Colden call him? Zeff the Chef?"

"A nickname he gave. Zeff here has been very good at sneaking into places for us. Resourceful kid. I don't know if we would continue to use him for sneaking around when he gets older—" He glanced at me to examine a moment then turned back to Thom."—His frame indicates someone who will be fairly large in size. But he has a lot of fire, so I'm sure we'd still have a use for him as he gets bigger."

"I see…" Thom nodded. "I'll look into giving them both some good instruction after they grow some more meat on them. If we're still using them and they haven't run off by that time, I mean." He then looked at us—_actually_ looked at us—for the first time and gave a wide grin. "Inventory over; you're both dismissed. Leave us adults to discuss boring adult matters, now."

We did just that and sprinted off before Clyde could even think about snatching us up again, then spent the rest of the party playing and avoiding the other adults until Torzi found us under a table and told us it was time to go.

As we left, I heard Thom discussing with ring of men about something that sounded important. They spoke in low voices but their voices raised in emotion—usually anger or frustration—periodically. Thom's own rolling baritone, before genial, was now growling with authority as we went past, "And you know that how?"

The man he was speaking to fidgeted uncomfortably as he tripped over his own words in a hasty attempt to explain himself. He stuttered and went around off track from what he was trying to say several times, each mess-up making himself more nervous. The tension in this gathering of the Fleehold inner circle grew and suffocated those nearby as the other members in the circle stared hard at the man stumbling in his answers.

Torzi cleared his throat and looked away, urging us forward with a light push to our backs. "Keep walking. Just keep walking."

Quarter Thom would later be one of the most influential people in my life, even past his position as one of the most influential people in Pakerville.

.-.-.

Even though I met the father figure himself, it took me just as long as everyone else to rise up in Fleehold ranks. I did mostly petty crime, either commissioned crime or freelance, to make ends meet. The money was more than necessary now, because Grams never made meals or clothes anymore; she couldn't even hold a mixing spoon or her knitting needle without dropping it. I was the breadwinner of the house.

I continued to steal food from the restaurants, but I lingered longer and longer as I watched them cook. I couldn't watch Grams cook anymore, and though she still tried to tutor me as I worked on a meal on our stove, she stayed standing by me less and less. She complained about her aches and pains and was almost always sitting on the couch with a blanket over her knees, though she couldn't find much of anything to do with her time.

Fleehold members usually kept business and home separate (as a matter of protecting members' family) so I was very confused the day Colden and Clyde first came to visit. Grams answered the door while I worked on the food, and when I heard Colden's loud laugh I nearly dropped my spatula into the dish I was preparing. Grams ended up insisting they stay for dinner when they revealed that they were the ones who often employed me to do the "odd jobs" that now entirely funded our household.

So I ended up having to expand the meal nearly at the last minute, and I groused about that at the table. Colden laughed it off and Clyde ignored it, while Grams merely told me that it was good practice. "You're going to have to adjust in the middle of cooking a lot if you ever want to become a great chef, Little Eggplant."

The nickname made Colden laugh harder. My face heated up and turned the shade of a cherry tomato.

"Yes, Grams," I replied sulkily, but then shot a glare with narrowed eyes on the men, "but its still poor taste that they should pop in to visit during dinner time, isn't it?"

Colden wasn't perturbed. He probably thought my childish anger was cute. "I didn't think of you as the type to care about etiquette, Zeff."

I frowned and forced another bite of food into my mouth, hardly tasting it and only mildly noting that something of spongy substance with grains of salt sprinkled on it had entered my mouth. They kept some light conversation with Grams for a while.

Grams hand shook slightly as it held her fork, but she otherwise looked cheerful. "I'm very glad to meet the men who let my Zeffie work for them. The money has helped us both out quite a bit. I am very grateful."

"It's nothing really, ma'am," Clyde responded as he dabbed a napkin by his mouth. "The sort of work we need done isn't the heavy sort that corporations force where child labor laws would be enacted. Things more suited for his young talents. And he's a very good worker for us. Very _industrious_."

"I see. Nevertheless, I am thankful. So is Zeffie, right?"

I nodded submissively. I was past arguing by this point. Besides, I really _was _rather glad that there was some way we were getting money, and I was already stealing things. But the jobs they've been giving me as of late have been getting…

"Ow!" Grams looked down under the table. "Something hit my shin."

"No, that was not my foot." Colden responded hastily, before actually hearing and processing what she said. "Erh, I mean, sorry, ma'am. I guess I kicked out a little far. Big feet, y'know."

"Oh, it's all right. This kitchen is rather small and there's no where really to put your legs." As she said this, I felt Colden kicking my own shins, then making a motion with his head towards the door.

"I'll be right back, Grams." I stood out of my chair. "I left my dirty shoes outside and I heard it was going to rain."

"Rain?" Clyde said nonchalantly, then dabbed quickly with a napkin before standing himself, "We left something outside your door as well. I hope you don't mind if we excuse ourselves…"

When the three of us were outside, I let my dander get up. "Why do you guys even have to come to my house? I told you that I'd break into the Ballorgy Factory later this week. Can't you be patient?"

"The local store ran out of patience, so I'm just going to keep nagging." Clyde responded in his usual snooty, faux-stoical air, "Besides, some of our businesses are floundering badly and need something to stimulate them."

"The stick is right as usual, kid," Colden jumped in. "I've hit rock bottom again."

"Again? Can't you keep your _own _damn things in order?" I growled.

"It's not like that. There's a rumor of a sting floating around and a lot of our associates have turtled and strongholded, and some of our operations, mine one of them, rely on _their_ interactions you see. Your friend Torzi is having similar troubles. Can't do his deliveries if no one's needin' deliverin', y'know."

I growled and shoved my hands into my pockets. "I told you I'll do it later. The security in the factory turns stupid on that end of the week with all the tired factory workers shuffling around. Can't it wait?"

Clyde sighed, indicating he was exacerbated with drawing out a conversation whose conclusion was inevitable. "I'm afraid not, Zeff. We need that machinery malfunctioning, and we need it to happen _before _the weekend. Otherwise the business owners won't see their advantage, and the support businesses only have a week before they have to start paying their loans and tithes that they currently can't afford. If it were only one or two businesses that'd be getting the strong-arm for not paying, it's no big deal, but it's a significant number, including inner circle members. The primaries have to know that they aren't going to be put out of business by a mass-producing engine like they have."

"That's pretty much the gist of it, kid," Colden added. "The best time to hit them is tonight, so that they'll run it tomorrow morning and wreck the thing. They'd still hav'ta wait until the beginning of next week to start fixing it; we made sure. Just do your part and everything will fall inta' place, okay?"

I growled. I didn't really understand the whole thing, but I it at least sounded pretty serious, and they weren't going to let up. "Fine! But you guys are sure as hell making sure I don't reach adulthood."

As I figured, the dumb little mission they sent me on a few days too early nearly _killed _me. Slipping into the big warehouse wasn't really that difficult, but I was so on edge with all the extra security about, my muscles had actually cramped up from the tension. I was in this sort of stiff state while I zipped through the warehouse and into the factory portion, up metal stairs, and onto thin catwalks suspended over vats of liquid and large, grinding machinery. When the horn for the end of the shift sounded, it was right above me, and I nearly jumped straight off the catwalk into a churning vat of steaming who-knows-what (looking back, I think it was molten opaque plastic that hadn't been dyed yet). The only thing that saved my life was the railing and the fact my shoes were too slippery for the jump, making me slide backwards and hit my head against the rail instead.

I regained consciousness a few hours after the factory had been shut down for the night, which was lucky I guess in that no one found me and I didn't crack my skull open (at which point, it would have been seriously bad if no one _had _found me). I could finish my mission ease by that point, but then I found that I couldn't actually get out as everything was completely locked down. Any vents that would have been big enough for me were out of reach, and I had no idea what to do about a deadbolt. It was an hour before dawn when I was finally released by the early shift of workers coming in for their morning run. Grams was frantic by the time I got home, and I had to go immediately to bed because I was so exhausted and my eyes throbbed every time a sliver of sunlight met them.

Actually, that mission in particular doesn't make my leg hurt when I remember it. It makes my head hurt. Och.

* * *

I finished this two days ago but couldn't upload it.


	5. Olfensive

Disclaimer: Chapter one.

No A/N

* * *

"Ow, Ow! OW! I've got a cramp." Grams moaned and hobbled over to a chair so that she could rub her arrested knee. I silently stood at the side and watched, waiting to see if she needed anything. As the months went on, it had switched where I had to take care of her more than she did for me. She tried doing work around the house, but it was hard for her to be up for long, and as a result was forced to be increasingly still. Lately, I've had to braid her gray hair into the long, thick column she preferred since her own hands couldn't handle it anymore. I was getting quite good at it, actually.

"Are you okay, Grams?" I followed up quickly from the chores I was doing. "Do you need anything?"

She shook her head. "No Zeffie, dear."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, dear. Don't you let me be a bother to you."

I frowned. I did not like the defeated tone she'd been taking, lately. It didn't seem right for Grams. "You're not a bother. I'm almost finished cleaning, anyway."

"You're so industrious for your age, but I really am fine, Zeffie. You should go and play with your friend Gauzi after you're done. Children your age should be out running out and about in the sunlight with other children."

I guess I really _had _to go out of the house to run around in the sunlight, because Grams wouldn't take "no" for an answer. I did as she told me and went to visit Gauzi. His father Torzi had just gotten him a pet bunny—why not something more manly like a dog or a bird or even a turtle is beyond me—and Gauzi was already taken with taking it out of its cage and making it chase a toy he made using some string and a feather around the boatyard. He was doing just this when, once again, Clyde's long shadow drifted over us.

Gauzi sighed. "Alright, Waldo, time to go back inside." He picked up the fat animal and started towards the door. Thinking back on it, Waldo was a really stupid name for a white rabbit, but everything about that rabbit was stupid, so I didn't think on it at the time. While waiting for him to return, I turned to Clyde and growled at him.

"Why is it that every time you're around, I get the feeling that doom is going to befall us?"

Clyde seemed amused by my remark, at least as amused as Clyde could get. "'Befall'? You're vocabulary is getting quite advanced for your age, Zeff."

"_You _keep insisting I learn things and you use all those funny words around me. I can't help but pick it up," I groused unhappily, "So what do you want me to do _today?_ Break into the mayor's house?"

"Oh, I don't want you to do a job, today. I want you to come with me for some lessons."

"Lessons? Are you going to _indoctrinate_ me in your lousy speech now?" I frowned. Of course, I _had _to use one of those words even when complaining about it.

"Hah, no, no. Not those kinds of lessons. The thing is, my boy, you're already starting to fill out. Children are such weeds. Since you look like you're going to become quite the bruiser, we decided that you would be most useful in the future if you knew how to defend yourself. Naturally, Gauzi should come along, too."

In an instant, I was excited and more than willing to comply. It's a good thing that I _wanted _to go, because I don't think Clyde would have taken "no" for an answer, either. Gauzi was especially thrilled about learning to fight, since he was already a brute at his age so it only seemed natural. However, I almost immediately regretted it after just a few minutes with my new fighting instructor. Ballado was the sort of self-righteous, bullying man that insisted he was right and proved it frequently with his ham fists. An obtuse, filthy man who reeked of boiled cabbage and cheap beer, and was perhaps the most unlikable of people I have ever met in all my years. His ultimate answer to any argument was always a beat down. Might equals right and so forth. It's a bit annoying realizing now that some of that ogre's sensibility rubbed off on me, but I'd have to concede his effectiveness.

"All right, you little pieces of shanty dirt." He began, his grating voice and putrid breath raining down on us with his saliva, like his disdain for us had a physical form. "You're going to learn to toughen up and become men under my direction, or you're going to die trying. Am I clear?"

Gauzi barked an affirmative like it was reflex. I frowned.

Balladdo sneered with his over-thick lips. "Are you making a face at me, boy?"

"No, I-" A whack came across my face. "OW!"

"Talk with respect, you squeaky little piglet! _Now_, we're going to start the lesson, _got it?_" With no more than this as warning, his fists came down on us. We were able to move in time so that we didn't take the brunt of the hit. We spent the next hour running around him, being criticized for our every move. Very little of what I could throw at him could connect, and when it did, he brushed it off like a mosquito's bite. Presently, an attack of mine was sidestepped, and I was slapped backwards, thrown down onto the hard mat.

"What sort of momma's boy are you? Parents shelter their little boys to this extent nowadays?" Balladdo spat. "You make me want to puke."

I cursed every curse a kid of my age could think of and attempted to throw myself at him again, fists flying. I was tripped and my right fist slammed into the wall behind him. Pain cracked through my knuckles and I cried out, clutching my freshly wounded hand against my chest.

"Tch. Pitiful." Balladdo remarked before turning and commanding Gauzi to come at him without missing a beat. I moaned and rolled over on the ground, laying there for a long while.

A familiar hand fell on my shoulder. "Hey, kid." It was Colden kneeling over me. "Geddup."

I did as he asked but I persisted in looking unhappy.

"You're doing a real good job at this so far, Zeff. I mean it. Most people can't hardly get a fist on him at all, especially at your age."

"He doesn't seem to think so," I mumbled.

"Aww." He pished. "Don't listen to that. He's a mean fellow, but he trains our boys hard and well. I think he might'av been a soldier once. Or maybe a marine."

"A marine? _Him?_" Marines at that time in North Blue were so clean and well groomed that you were more likely to see dust in a hospital or than a marine base, or a five o'clock shadow on a pretty nurse than a petty officer. It was hard to imagine a smelly, offensive item like Balladdo in such an environment.

"Something like that. Anyway, don't get yourself depressed about it, huh? Hey, I got you a present today! I was gonna give it to you earlier, but Clyde was the one that had to pick you up to start training." He reached behind him and pulled out something from his back pocket.

What he produced was a yellowed piece of rolled up parchment. He handed the scroll to me, and I took it carefully, confused and curious about what this was that he was giving me. It couldn't have been in his possession long as it didn't reek of his usual brand cigar smoke. He bid me to examine it with a nod, and I unscrolled it. Then I realized what it was, and switched it right side up.

It was perhaps the strangest map I've ever seen. It was one of those old maps that have various superstitious things drawn and written throughout it, with a few drawings of Sea Kings accompanied with warnings. I couldn't tell at all where this place was supposed to be exactly, but I knew why Colden gave it to me. Within a lightly dotted line was an area of the sea in the picture, and it was labeled in indigo ink "All Blue".

I looked up at him with wide eyes. "Where did this come from?"

"Found it in some store where I was doing some 'book exchanges'. I heard you talking about it before and decided to pick it up. Wow, that hand of yours is already bruising up something fierce."

When he mentioned it, I realized there was stiffness in the hand that I had crashed into the wall. I took a look and saw that my knuckles were already swelling into a violent-looking color.

"Maybe you should turn in for the rest of the day, hmm?"

I looked at him skeptically. "I don't think he'll let me."

Without another word, Colden stood up and faced Balladdo. "Zeff is a bit winded, Ball. I'm taking him home."

Balladdo rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. "Then please bring the _poor little baby_ home and outta my sight!" He shoved Gauzi forward. Gauzi tripped slightly towards us but recovered himself. "Take this clumsy thing with you, while you're at it. Let them sob over their wee welts together and come back realizing they're being spoiled and fretted on. You're too soft on kids, Colden. I'd almost like Clyde better if he wasn't such a stiff."

Colden actually looked a little offended by the remark. Balladdo made a huge laugh that could only come from a spiteful old unit like himself and said, confirming that he enjoys lowering other people's self-esteem, "I'm on a roll today."

"Well, don't say such a thing to Clyde. I don't think he'd appreciate it."

"Oh you don't? I don't think he'd care unless he was in one of his _snobbier-than-thou_ tiffs. You, on the other hand, not only feel offended for yourself but for the old pressed jacket." He waved it away. "Anyway, get your asses outta here already. I've got better things to do than babysit sniveling children that should still be sucking on their mothers' breast."

I appreciate that Colden let me walk home alone after we left. It gave me a little time to think and I'm rather glad I didn't have Colden or Gauzi there to see my expression when I opened the door.

Grams was laying on the old couch—the one that hardly had any stuffing in it anymore to be _considered _a couch—with a blanket over her, bundled and shivering lightly despite the warm weather. Her hair wasn't in her braid, and I couldn't remember if I helped her braid it that morning or not.

"Oh, who is that who just came in?" I heard her coo. She turned and looked at me, and three seconds later she said. "Oh, Zeffie, my Little Eggplant. You're back from playing. Did you have a good time?"

I nodded and approached. "...Are you okay, Grams? Are you sick?"

"Oh, no dear. Just a little tired, is all. Just tired. Maybe not one-hundred percent but I've no sickness or anything like that. Do you want me to make you some dinner, dear?"

"No, that's fine, Grams." She hadn't made dinner for a while, now, and I don't think she'd be in any condition to stand in front of a stove. My nose crinkled after a few seconds, and my eyes watered slightly. I looked around for the source of the stench, and found the direction from where it wafted most strongly. "There's a funny smell coming out of your room."

She looked distant for a moment, like she didn't hear the question, but soon answered, "Oh yes. I knocked over the old floral fragrance while I was looking over the album. I really do miss your mother and her doting husband."

I didn't waste time to go into her room to see for myself, because the smell was _very _distracting. But when I opened the door, I was assaulted with how rancid the odor really was, like rotten, vinegary gardenias and fruit. What was once a delicate little glass bottle was broken into a million pieces on the floor in a pool of brownish liquid. A similar pool had fallen straight in the middle of the photo album that stood open on the dressing table, staining and bleaching some of the pictures. A perfume-soaked rag was discarded off to the side, large drops and runs trailing after it.

It was pretty easy to piece out what had happened, especially as I thought about it frequently in later years. Grams must have been reminiscing and looking over photos (I had noticed it was opened on a some family photos, myself as a baby with my parents before they died) and had on whimsy decided to take a sniff at my mother's old perfume. Either it was so rancid it surprised her, or her fingers failed her, but she dropped the perfume bottle straight down on the album. She panicked since she didn't want to ruin the pictures and attempted to remove the bottle, this time accidentally flinging it to the floor. She then tried to clean it all up with a rag, but was largely unsuccessful in it, and had given up. The odor and excitement was probably too much for her, so she cleaned up herself and reclined on the couch, away from the stench.

I cleaned up the mess myself and tried my best to rid the room of the smell, even opening windows and doors and bringing in fresh flowers and stalks of grass and even some dirt in a pot. I tried to clean up the album with as little damage as possible. I cooked a very aromatically light meal for the two of us and brewed tea. With all this, I tried to be sneaky or play it off as childish, but Grams saw through it without a single problem because no kid can be childish when they're putting so much effort in something like that. She gave a slow chuckle to herself, like it was an inside joke, and said I had my father's face.


	6. Chocolate Houses

Disclaimer: .eno retpahChapter one.

It's almost Friday… eh, good enough, right?

* * *

Grams died two months later.

I guess it was lucky that I was not the person who found her. By that point, Torzi had gained a habit of checking in on us from time to time, sometimes under the pretense of legitimate business, sometimes referring to it as a social call. In any case, he was genuinely worried about how we would fair as autumn approached. I was being taught fighting at the time, and no one was answering the door when he knocked, so he gently let himself in so he could resolve his own curiosity and looked around.

He said he was a little startled when he saw she was sitting in her rocking chair, but the chair was not moving. Before he had often come when she was in that chair, but the thing had a ghastly loud creak that she'd somehow gotten used to, so he did not expect to find her there when it was quiet and unmoving. He assumed she fell asleep, but upon examining her, found out the truth.

There were already people taking away her body under a shroud by the time I got home, Gauzi behind me. Torzi calmly explained what happened to me himself. I'm not entirely sure what Grams died of; if anyone told me, I was either in a daze or I didn't understand it at the time. All I figure is that if it was a disease, it wasn't viciously contagious since no doctor insisted I should be quarantined. I was just offered condolences and told where they were going to put her ashes. Torzi tried to talk me into moving with him and Torzi, but I dodged out of it and continued living in that house alone.

This, of course, meant that I was living in a lot of risk despite that I had been, in many ways, already living alone. I'll explain this much later. First, though, I think I should tell about when Clyde interrupted one of Balladdo's lessons (rather brazenly, I should add), and it got thrown up into a huge argument.

"Thom requires this sort of use and the sooner I bring him to the galleon, the better," Clyde said stiffly, "The lesson will have to wait until tomorrow."

Balladdo snorted. "What use would that lump of blubbering beeswax have to Thom? He's just a dumb kid, and a weakling to boot. Doesn't even have any mind of manners. Now maybe if you let me throw him around a bit first to make that empty head of his a bit wiser…"

"He is needed immediately. If you want to argue the point further, I suggest you take it up with Thom." Clyde strode over towards me as if I was just a checkpoint for a task on his to-do list and grabbed my arm with his talon-like fingers.

"I'm not going to let the baby have a day where he's gotten to rest!" A lie, since he had already worked me over about halfway through the usual exhaustion.

"Then work him twice as hard and long tomorrow," Clyde snapped, and quickly strode out of the dojo with his skinny, digging grip in my arm. The conversation was obviously over. I groaned in dread of what my day tomorrow would be like.

After we were a good distance away from the dojo, Clyde finally spoke, his pace and his hand still not relenting, "How are you with chocolate, Zeff?"

"Huh?" I was bewildered with the question for a moment. Clyde had never really before inquired on my culinary skills and this was completely out of the blue. "Chocolate? It's kind of fun to work with sometimes. You can shape a lot of stuff with it. Grams and I used to make little chocolate houses with sugar windows. Why?"

"We're having a banquet for an esteemed associate of Thom. His name is Duman. We already hired the chef and planned the menu in advance, but then Duman dropped on us that he was bringing one of his concubines with him, a Miss Yonca. Her favorite food is chocolate, and she demands it… but the chef we hired has some strange superstition against chocolate and refuses to work with it. Something about not being able to handle its 'temperament'. It's too late to hire someone else."

"I think he means he has trouble tempering the chocolate," I blurted, "Chocolate has to go through a process called tempering to make it shiny and evenly distributed."

"I don't care about techniques, just results. Can you do it or not?"

I gulped. "Sure."

My arm was definitely getting bruised by the time we reached the galleon. "The kitchen is under deck, down two levels, third chamber from the rudder. The bathroom is somewhere in that general area, and so is the galley," he said as deposited me at the gangplank, "Don't get lost!"

I found the kitchen quickly enough, and was almost immediately ordered by the head chef (a pompous man from the high-class restaurant I stole from frequently—which made it hard to steal from there later since he recognized me) to get to work at making enough chocolates for twenty people and made it clear that they'd better be good or I'll be skewered and dipped in caramel!

I wasn't given much more of an order other than "chocolate", so after I cut up and tempered it properly, I started sculpting bite-sized flowers. Seemed like a logical design to me since these were mainly there for some girl. As they set, I sprinkled them with various things around the kitchen: chopped nuts, coconut, cinnamon, shredded dark and white chocolate, etc.

All the while, the head chef gave me hell. He abused the thesaurus in his words so badly that half the things he said didn't make sense, and used far too much obscure culinary terminology for anyone to follow his directions. I was always amazed watching before how well the other chefs in that restaurant understood him, and now, being also under his fiery "instruction", I was suspecting they just ignored him and did their thing.

I was almost done and waiting for the chocolate to set when one of the others saw my work and congratulated me. "Hard to believe a kid of your age could make delicate petals like that. I'm sure that Yonca chick will love them."

"Thanks…" I felt just awkward enough already that it was hard to feel embarrassed. "What sort of girl is Yonca anyway? Is she really formal? Lots of petticoats and skirts?"

"Are you serious? One of Duman's girls?" He laughed. "Don't be so daft. Of course she doesn't wear skirts."

I was about to ask what he meant when he made an exclamation and returned to the sizzling pan at his station. The mystery didn't remain long; noises were coming from the galley as guests arrived. The dinner was about to be served. A ship hand from somewhere came in to make sure everyone was prepared, then ushered me to a backroom with a change of clothes, insisting that I also serve the meal that I helped make.

When I exited into the galley carrying a dish of hors d'oeuvres, I finally saw the guests present with Quarter Thom. Various personages, including some notable people I recognized from newspapers, as well as the man who I stole the document from during my first job and his sister. All lounged on large cushions on the floor or low-setting couches nearby, including who I quickly figured out was the guest of honor and his concubine.

Yonca was the very first person to whom my eyes drew towards. She was probably one of the most beautiful women I'd seen in my life by that time, and she didn't dress modestly in the least. Sheer, multicolored nylon sheets were wrapped around her body, more accentuating than actually covering much of anything up. Only the most necessary areas to cover were wrapped over more than once to obscure what had to be hidden. Her make-up was likewise bright and colorful, with long lashes, golden highlights and eye shadow, and vibrant orange-red lips that had a very distinctive cupid-bow shape. A brush-pen with blue ink played in her hand like a cigarette holder.

Sharing the large cushion with her was the man of honor himself, Duman. He had a sly look to his face and wore baggy white pants with his silver-embroidered vest open, showing his gangly, dusky-skinned frame. His hair was carefully tied back into a knot, and he sat casually with his large feet bare. A pipe connecting to a large jade hookah in the middle of the room sayt in his hand. He took a drag through it and grinned his large, white teeth.

"The food is coming in. Here, boy! Bring that tray this way!" He snapped his fingers.

I felt slightly offended by his manner, but I did what I could to not let it show and came up beside him. He plucked a morsel from the tray and handed it to his courtesan, then picked up another one for himself. "Good. You may go."

I handed out hors d'oeuvres until there weren't any more, accompanied with lots of drink. The situation was similar as I brought out the meals and then, finally, the chocolate I made.

"Oooh, cho-ko-late!" Yonca pronounced in an odd accent. "Bring that here, boy!"

I did. She looked over my creations with interest. "How cute, they're shaped like little flowers…" And as she reached over for a bloom a nervous blush crept up my neck and the tray shook in my hands. She delicately popped it into her vermilion lips, chewed slowly, swallowed (I was honed in on every motion), and then gave a sigh. "Oh, how delicious!"

I felt a little flustered and dully answered, "Thank you, ma'am."

Thom heard this and raised a brow at me. "Oh, that's right. I nearly forgot." He adjusted himself so that he faced us. "Zeff here is a little chef himself. He made these chocolates special for tonight."

"Really?" Yonca said with surprise, and I found myself being pulled down by dainty, painted hands to sit beside her. "Such a talented little boy! You should visit with us, yes?" She looked towards Duman expectantly with her large, long-lashed eyes.

Duman gave a simper like that of a father that had to humor his child. "Indeed. Sit with us a while. The others can bring out the rest."

I remained with them as they finished their dining and continued their drinking. Bottles of wine and other spirits were passed around liberally, and Yonca even insisted that I have a swig from time to time. I couldn't handle it very well at that age and coughed each time I drank… this was the only thing that kept me from getting _completely _shitfaced too quickly.

Yonca, atop the drinking, was also smoking from the hookah without restriction, making her giggly and cuddly. She seemed to adore being immersed in this atmosphere, enjoying as she watched the other guests. She especially loved drawing them on the ivory paper she had on hand. "I love drunks. They're so funny."

Duman slammed down the bottle he was drinking from, mocking about Yonca's flighty attentions being drawn elsewhere. "What do I have to do to get a massage around here?!"

Yonca made a giggle and came up behind him, coaxing him to lie on his belly as she rubbed his back. He did so, smoking lazily from the hookah himself as her hands worked his backflesh. I don't think I ever saw a man look so thoroughly relaxed while still maintaining a serious conversation as he did with Thom, but he succeeded in it. Any other man wouldn't have even been able to attempt to smoke in front of Thom, fearing they might offend him some way.

The night drew on, which wasn't bother me anymore since I didn't have anyone to go home to. I had been convinced to take a few more swigs of something that burned my throat (but it was easier to swallow it, this time) and was eventually laying flat on my back, not feeling enough drive to even move myself over to a pillow.

A twirling brush-pen appeared in my vision as Yonca leaned over me.

"Zeff, could I ask you a favor?"

"Huh?" I grunted out.

The pen twirled in her fingers some more. "Can I doodle on your face? I'm all out of paper."

I didn't really understand the request, so I said, "Sure." I vaguely remember something cold and wet tracing lines on my cheeks before I stopped remembering anything of that night.

.-.-.

I woke up the next morning in my house with a thrashing headache and a queasy stomach. Throwing up helped the nausia, but not my headache. I realized I had a hangover and set about to drinking lots of water and making myself some hangover remedies in Grams' old cookbooks. Only a little less than half of these remedies were disgusting.

By some miracle I was fit enough to have my extra-long-extra-hard training session with Balladdo, but still only just so. I flurried a lot, throwing a lot of hasty punches and hitting a lot of walls and floors that I was numb and swollen going back home. I tried to ignore the pain creeping in behind the numbness while I washed myself up, then started dinner.

I didn't make anything special because I didn't really feel like it; just reheated some soup. As I ate, the pain from the training all came back on me and seized up my joints. I ignored it and finished eating and started cleaning dishes.

I saw, while cleaning, there was some chocolate poking out of the pantry. I must have swiped ingredients from that party and forgot! I rushed over and took it out and set immediately on melting and tempering it. It tempered fine, so I laid it out in thin sheets and made columns and started cutting it. I was making a chocolate house. I even had enough sugar to make the windows!

Pain shot through my hands and my knife slipped while I was cutting out the tiles for the roof. It cut hard into the sheet of chocolate and the sheet shattered. Some of the pieces and tiles flew off the board and onto the kitchen floor.

I looked down from the stepping stool I stood on to the shards of broken candy on the floor. Then I looked at my hands. They were swelling even more; my fingers looked like small, purple sausages. They were so swollen I couldn't move them.

I couldn't move my hands.

These were the same hands that I made chocolate flowers the just night before with, and now I couldn't even cut a straight line with them.

I stepped off the stool and walked out of the kitchen in a daze. When I got to the living room, I crawled up into the couch, curled up in a ball facing the back, and sobbed for Grams to come home.

* * *

...  
Hah.


	7. Put Some Swing in It!

Disclaimer: It's in the chapter one.

Good evening, kiddies. Here is the next chapter. The lyrics of the song in here is mostly from two of the phrases used from the convention and is not a real song… that's owned by anyone who actually gives a damn, anyway.

* * *

Balladdo looked down at me with his typical sneer, still imposing but not as bad as when I first was thrust into his teaching, when I was half a foot shorter.

"All right, you little snot-nosed brat," he grumbled from his belly, "You have about five seconds to impress me."

I breathed and fell back into a natural stance, then I sprung up at him and whipped my right leg towards his head. He caught it easily, but I was expecting that; I shifted my weight in the air and my left stomped down onto his chest. He faltered back a little, releasing me, and I followed up with another kick before returning to the floor and ducking to under-swipe him. He fell back on his ass and promptly started to laugh.

"Good, good!" he proclaimed, standing up as if nothing had happened. "We're really cultivating that kick of your into a regular _rocket_, now! You sure as hell aren't wasting Thom's suggestions!"

I nodded and crossed my arms. My hard work was showing, now. Both Gauzi and I were easily able to beat up even most adults now, though Gauzi was still cultivating mostly his own natural brute strength. My own ability to be light on my feet that was enhanced by continuous theft and robbery on my own part had become much of the foundation in my own fighting style. However, the keystone to it, at this point, was Quarter Thom himself.

The time following Grams' death up to this point had been especially harsh. Even while I was before doing most of the chores around the house, I still didn't have a very good clue as to most of the proper things of caring for a house long term was, nor of caring for myself quite yet. I had food down, sure, and money wasn't an issue anymore, but being alone meant struggling with ailments and lacerations of various sorts _without _help. I didn't know what to avoid, what to do when sick, how to cope with it while being the only person in the house, or even how to get help from a doctor properly without getting pushed out for not having my guardian with me.

This became a heavier issue when I decided, following the chocolate incident, to never throw a punch again—in order to keep my hands in as good condition as I could, so that I would never feel the pain of not being able to cook as Grams had in the end. But I still had to defend myself and be strong, no matter what. I wasn't about to resign myself to being a weakling, even if I _could _afford it.

So, I was limited to kicking. Balladdo, being ham-fisted as he was, thought the notion was ludicrous and flatly said so as soon as I suggested it. But I kept it up, refusing to let myself have a fist fall, going as far as tying my arms behind my back at times (I quit that because I ended up just cutting off circulation). This caused me to get pummeled to quite a high degree, nearly to the point that I should have been hospitalized a few times. Eventually, Balladdo seemed to understand that I was completely serious about what I was trying to do, and he, with Clyde and Colden, did what he felt was the most logical course of action: consult Quarter Thom himself. Of course, I wasn't invited when they talked about it, and they didn't _warn _me that he was going to do this.

So I was in a bit of shock when I answered a knock at the door to find the boss himself, running his hands over his grand handlebar mustache, leaning on his umbrella in such a way that I expected the skinny thing to break under his weight.

When I got over my shock, I sputtered, "G-Gottanno-sama! P-please, come in…!" I whipped my head around and opened the door wider for him.

Thom strode in with his courtly air, at most amused by my flustered reaction. "Thank you, m'boy. And please, call me Thom. Everyone else in the family does, you know."

"Yessir… I-I mean, Thom-sama."

He chuckled, most likely since even after correcting my politeness I still used a high honorific, but he didn't note on it. Instead, he merely went over to the threadbare armchair and sat down as if it were one of his own well-upholstered thrones, crossing his umbrella over his legs. "Lets sit, Zeff. No doubt you wonder why I've come here today."

I nodded and climbed into the ragged couch opposite of him. "I do. Did I do something wrong?"

This time he laughed loudly. "No, no, m'boy! You're doing very well, all things considered." He made a glance around at the house to indicate those "things considered". "But your sparring behavior is growing a little bit of concern with your teacher and your superiors. You've been limiting yourself only to kicks, they say."

"I-I have." I looked down at my knees. "It's because I don't want to hurt my hands.

"Eh?"

"I don't want to bruise them because I want to be a chef. Grams said once that if your hands are crippled as a chef, your whole identity is crippled. She said they must always be quick and nimble and steady, not bruised or marred or strained. That's what she said." After a short, uncomfortable pause, I continued, "She wasn't able to use her hands before she died because of arthritis, and she was miserable. I don't want to end up that way."

"Hm-mmm…" Thom reached up and stroked his long mustaches again, chewing over these words. "Is that so? Well, that is a conundrum there, isn't it? You're definitely set out to be a good fighter by what the others have told me…"

I looked up at him in surprise. "R-really? They said that?"

"…But you're definitely a fine cook at your age. At least when it comes to that chocolate you made. Delicious."

I blushed hard and hid my face by staring at my knees again. "…Thank you, sir."

He made another chuckle, and then cleared his throat with a rolling cough. "See, you're even flattered by praise in both. Well, it's not fair to make you have to choose, especially with all you've had to deal with so far, so we won't make you. Instead..." He stood abruptly and tapped the umbrella back on the ground. "Tomorrow, Colden will come visit you an hour and a half before Clyde usually picks you up to Balladdo's training. Go with him and we'll see what we can do about this matter, hmm?"

I was confused, but I nodded. "Yessir, I mean, yes Thom-sama. Thank you."

And so Colden did arrive like Thom said the next day, and I was taken to the Gottanno mansion. The old man had a large gym lined with mats. He himself wore an old-fashioned blue and white gym jumper, which, coupled with his mustaches, made him look like an obese version of those weight lifters in old pictures. Once again, he leaned on his umbrella, which looked like it might pierce into the mats below it. Then he announced that he, himself, was going to help me develop—get this—_my own fighting style_.

"An enormous task, I know," Thom commented with a nod at my saucer-wide eyes, "but most martial artists find that they have to mix and match fighting styles to match their own way, eventually. We'll just have to do this process with you sooner."

And so the private training began. Despite his size, Thom was surprisingly light on his feet. He had his umbrella handy to swipe at my legs and sometimes hook a foot to trip me, making comments and suggestions along the way about my form. I fell a hell of a lot that first session, and was on the mat more often than not. But the second time I was only tripped ten times, and the third, less than that.

Meanwhile, Balladdo's own training took a different run with me. He had to regard Gauzi and I separately now, since Gauzi was pure bruiser and could stay with his normal fighting style. With me, however, he had to dip into his knowledge from back in the day when he studied several martial arts, trying to pull up any and every style that had an emphasis on special kick fighting from his memory. He even had to pull out old collections and even a rare poetic anthology concerning martial arts that he got when he was younger and sparingly read since.

One of the kicks he was helping me develop was from an old South Blue style that fell out of style long ago, but the kick itself Balladdo had found interesting. It was a mid-air stomp that required fast movement and a twist in it that burned the chest along with the impact when it hit. He couldn't pronounce the proper name for it, so he dubbed it "rocket kick" after a rocket he saw crash during a fireworks show.

Of course, all the hard work he put into it meant that I was expected to put _three times_ as much work in to make up for the trouble. I found that if I wasn't doing jobs or sleeping, I was cooking or training. I hardly had time to peek in and watch the famous chefs cooking from the backdoor anymore, and was getting too big to get away with sneaking in restaurant kitchens, anyway. Of course, I forced myself into being bedridden from all this work eventually, but instead of leaving me alone, Clyde dragged me out of bed (despite my cries to leave me to sleep, goddamnit, I'm just a kid and I'm sick!) before Thom, who ordered Clyde to take me to his doctor for treatment, then ordered me to get well and get back to working and training. Ever since that point, I had reliable medical care while in the Fleeholds.

That all brought me up to this point I was in now; a couple years had passed, and my fighting style was finally beginning to cement itself. The "rocket kick" still had kinks, I thought, and I needed to work on it, but Balladdo was pleased by it so I used it a lot when showing him.

"Maybe we'll make something out of you, yet," Balladdo rumbled, then turned away. "I think we're done for today, unless you really need a daily beating to keep you little cocky idiots in your place."

"Ah, how fortunate," a cold voice cut in. I turned and frowned at Clyde.

"Eh? You collecting them, today?" Balladdo wiped his head with a towel. "Usually you let them walk home. What, despite all the training, the little dears need an _escort?_"

Clyde, as usual, disregarded the remark. "Thom requires their presence at Club Valler. I'm to have them clean and presentable before I bring them there. Obviously, it's not a matter that the likes of Colden or these children can perform without supervision." The last bit he added with a snooty suggestion that, yes, he meant _you too Balladdo, you unhygienic, drooling swine_, and promptly left with us.

By this point, Clyde had already forced me to get those sorts of "presentable" clothes for such occasions, the same with Gauzi, so we were dropped off at our houses and given fifteen minutes each to get ready. Then we were taken to the nearby downtown area that Thom virtually ruled over and into a club with a flashing string of golden lights circling around the bright letters that spelled CLUB VALLER.

Various overhanging lamps encircled by orange stained glass lampshades dimly lit the inside. The smoke was thick, but also had a perfumed smell to it, making me wonder if someone was burning incense somewhere. When I was brought to Thom's private booth—seeing Colden and Torzi already there as well—I saw what the cause of the scent was; every table had a large, glass ashtray littered with potpourri so that when one snuffed a cigarette, they'd burn the potpourri and sweetened the resulting smoke. Probably a fire hazard but, hell, the air was probably more tolerable to breath in for it.

"Why is it that I can never find coffee in this place?" Colden began whining promptly as Clyde sat down.

It was probably a signal to start a fight, because instead of ignoring it, Clyde answered, "Call a waitress over and order a cup, like most civilized people do."

"I can't find a waitress, either."

"Well! Maybe if you didn't chase off every creature that had two legs and a matching set of breasts, they wouldn't be afraid to approach you."

Colden frowned and threw his cigar into the ashtray. "Don't start with me, Clyde."

"You started with me and you know it. Just order from the waitress when Thom calls her over."

Looking back at all this banter, if someone had told me that Clyde and Colden were married, I think I would have believed them.

"He already ordered her over… and got himself a pot!" He indicated the steaming metal pitcher sitting nearby Thom, then gave a lighthearted punch to Thom's arm. "The cheapskate won't even let me have any."

Thom laughed heartily. "I'm really not a cheapskate. I just don't like sharing."

"Yeah, yeah. That's why you broke that guy's legs over one hundred beri, right?"

The three immediately burst into guffaw (even Clyde, which meant that the account was true and that I didn't want to know the details). Us three that weren't in the loop shifted uncomfortably.

Music started up from the stage. A piano made some introductory jazz chords in ragtime, and two people entered the stage: a man in a tuxedo with a flute, and a woman in hardly anything with a broad smile. The two made a quick bow before the man took the flute to his lips and the woman took the center stage. She started singing with a airy, jazzy, lilting voice that I can still hear as clearly as the sea outside my window to this day.

_"Darling, my darling, oh so darling that you put up with me, cuz…"_ she sang. _"I'm a moody person. Look at me switch from joy to misery."_

Clyde actually smiled and said something uncharacteristic. "_Va-va-voom_, it's Felíche de la Rennace! What a stunner, huh? What a voice! I tell you, I'd love to dance a number with her."

"Yeah, she sure is," Colden agreed, then realized he never agreed with Clyde. "Hey, I thought girls weren't your thing."

Clyde made a grimace but chose not to acknowledge the comment, putting himself back into Miss de la Rennace's song.

_"I'm like a new toy; I lose my novelty very quickly."_ She sang. _"Oh so quickly and I just… think that it's absolutely darling, my darling, that you… love… me…!"_

Whether or not Clyde's "thing" was women, I could definitely see why he liked her, because she was every bit as stunning as he raved. And that song... sticks with me, you know? Still does to this day. There's just something about ragtime. Makes anything seem sweet or hot, not that de la Rennace _needed _it. But if something can't be given a little bit of swing, then it might not be worth doing in the first place.

* * *

Iwillnotendthechapterwith"itdon'tmeanathing"iwillnotendthechapterwith"itdon'tmeanathing"  
iwillnotendthechapterwith"itdon'tmeanathing"iwillnotendthechapterwith"itdon'tmeanathing"  
iwillnotendthechapterwith"itdon'tmeanathing"iwillnotendthechapterwith"itdon'tmeanathing"iwillnotendthechapterwith"itdon'tmeanathing".....


	8. Heat in the Kitchen

Disclaimer: I wrote it once and placed it in a chapter that sits on the front of all these chapters, as though it is a guardian… perhaps it acts as my Muse, for it takes the holder of the Muse in the Classical works. Instead of invoking a beautiful female, daughter of the Gods, I invoke a stalwart sort who assures all that come forward that I am one that does not have any legal ties to her fandom, that writes in a fashion that perhaps some may find offense. True and full of justice she is, my muse by the name "Disclaimer"…  
Tl;dr: Chapter one

Yo ho! I'm going to start responding to reviews now!  
WhimsicalHeart: Thank you! Zeff takes a good deal of brainstorming to explain his character, but the results come out well I think.  
Solo Loco Ellingson-Rose: Poor Zeff just keeps getting crap thrown at him.

* * *

Gauzi and I progressed steadily. Soon, we could bruise up most people we came across, adult or not adult. Our lessons under Balladdo continued at their usual frequency, while Gauzi was sent to lift weights outside of class and I was placed in front of a punching bag in Thom's personal gym. Meanwhile, the only trouble we had was a personal matter between Gauzi and I: his pet bunny Waldo ran away, and the day afterwards I invited him over to share some roasted rabbit with me. An awkward time, I guess, but I didn't do it. I'm sure it died, and Torzi just told him that the thing managed to run away to spare his feelings (never mind that it grew so fat it could hardly waddle, let alone run).

I continued getting older, growing bigger, getting taller. My duties in the Fleeholds, as it went, got harsher, included more action and less sneaking. Watching cooks and stealing food from them was in the past now; I was now one of the chefs that Thom employed, a personal cook for a powerful man with the biggest household kitchen you'd ever seen. I had some smug satisfaction with this; I felt like I was a big shot, now, since certainly few chefs could say they got to serve someone so illustrious, and as frequently. But… even though I never considered myself a very _nice _person, some of the jobs that Thom eventually had me going on were…

"What do you have on your mind?" Thom said, sparing a glance up from the chicken wings I just made for him. "You look like you have something to tell me."

"It's just…" I trailed off a bit, trying to think of the best way to bring up the point. I much rather would have avoided the point, but he was going to insist now, and it was something that could make him angry. I saw Thom angry before. It was probably one of the scariest experiences in my childhood. "…Is it really _necessary_ for me to beat up everyone when gathering protection money?"

"Well, it's different if they pay, but if I thought they were going to pay, I wouldn't send you." He looked me over thoughtfully. "You may be filling out, but you're still a kid. They aren't going to take you seriously. But after you rough them up, they will. You'll have a good little reputation built up for you for the future."

"But… there are women and children…"

"You'd only have to smack them if they get in your way. I want you to aim for the men, especially the business owner in question. _They_ need to have the shit beat out of them, and _they_ need to understand how strong ruthless you are, despite your age. Don't aim for the others, but don't show mercy to them, either. Got it?"

Torzi, who had joined him in the dinner, finally spoke up, prompted by my question. "What about me, Thom? When do I get out of my contract? I might be making money like this, but it's getting tough trying to keep things looking legitimate in front of the government."

"We've had this discussion, Torzi." Thom shrugged. "Think of it this way, when I finally get what I want, you won't have to work for me anymore." After a hum of thought, he added, "But that's entirely your choice if you want to leave."

"And what about my son, eh? You've already pulled him into the family as well. Now he's just as tainted as I am in the eyes of the government!"

One of the other generals by Thom sneered at Torzi's tone. "You know to watch what you say, Torzi."

Thom wiped his mouth with a napkin, trying his best to get the sauce off of his mustaches. "It's all right, Napenston. Torzi is just feeling a little suffocated from the heat from the government. We're all feeling it. We shouldn't let it get the best of us; that's what they want."

At this moment is when Clyde and Colden came in. They looked ragged and worn out; Colden was sweating enough beads for a dancing girl's dress, and Clyde's perfect suit looked a bit skewed… his tie was even crooked.

"What's for dinner? Something easy to chew, I hope." Colden plopped down into a chair and leaned back with a cigar, lighting it immediately. He threw his head back and took a long drag, then puffed it out through his teeth without removing the cigar. "I'm so tired I could sleep for weeks."

Clyde slid into an adjacent seat. "We report before we eat and rest, Colden."

"You take care of it. I'm beat."

Instead of igniting into a debate, Clyde merely took off his thin accountant-style glasses to rub between his eyes and retorted with a tired mumble, "I really don't know why I put up with you." At this moment, I realized how old Clyde was; thick tufts of gray were coming in his sideburns and scattering out through his dark hair. He was gaining a few wrinkles from all the frowning and squinting. Colden was looking old as well; he had more lines in his face and brow than I could remember Grams having. And they both looked _tired_, past normal exhaustion.

"We have a few good leads on the produce," Clyde started, "and we did the research. But everything's getting tighter and tighter, and I can't see where the bottleneck is going to end. This might not be a normal crackdown; they might be getting wise to our lines. I don't mean to complain, but…"

"Then don't, Clyde." Thom interjected curtly. "Give Zeff an order of food, before you continue; he's testing out my new kitchen."

Clyde shrugged and looked over at me without any emotion, like I was a waiter. "Fine. How about that beef heart dish you made last week? Can you do that quickly?"

"No problem," I said with a bit of a glare.

"That sounds good!" Colden looked up. "Give me a mess of that, too, Zeff!"

I shrugged and went to the kitchen. Clyde was already waist-deep into his report about whatever-the-hell they were sent out to do that made them so worn out. I paid it no mind and worked. It was a simple stew, and it didn't take too long to prepare the ingredients. The beef heart I had for it was a little overlarge even for an organ from a cow, but I guessed it should do fine since both of them sounded hungry. I took off the membrane and sliced that up, then boiled it with some chopped vegetables and seasoning. Then the onion side, I sliced up the bulb and browned it on the stove with some oil. While all this was going on, I prepared some gravy on the side. I timed it all pretty well; nothing burned even though I was using pretty high heat to make the process quick. I put it all on plates and served it.

"Mmm-mmmm! That smells great!" Colden didn't even wait for me to get to the table to take his dish and bring it to his seat to start eating. Clyde gave a curt nod at me and dug in without words.

Thom took a whiff of the aroma. "Zeff, a grand chef as always. Why don't you go ahead and do that job I have you on?"

"Right now?"

"But of _course_ right now. With things getting so unsteady, it'd be best to do it sooner rather than later. I'd rather everyone saw that I was still quite powerful and willing to do business despite all this heat."

"If you insist..."

He smiled, forcing his mustaches to curl up with his cheeks. "And _be careful_."

With a nostalgic feeling that cued in old memories of Grams before she died, I went out and collected protection money as Thom had ordered me. I found out that I actually wasn't so squeamish about kicking an interfering kid out of my way as I thought I'd be. It only took one hit and he sulked away with his mom guarding over him in fear, allowing me to bring down the real beating on the man of the house. The message was relayed without problem, and it was only the first of such missions I had to take. They paid me well.

.-.-.

Obviously, though, I wasn't meant to stay as a thug for a crime family. Maybe if things panned out differently, I'd still be in Pakerville, one of Quarter Thom's generals and his personal chef, but that's not how Fate made it roll out at all. The heat was as Clyde had feared; relentless and ever-present, never going to let up on us. The government in North Blue changed their policy heavily to combat organized crime, and the Fleeholds took a lot of damage from it despite their ability to stay one step ahead of the law. They were having difficulty adjusting everything to the changes around them, especially with so many people within the family figuring that the heat was only _temporary_.

And yet, despite the trials, Thom was determined to stand firm in the face of opposition. Jobs got tougher, and sometimes came out with less pay, but it was still better than legitimate work for a living, especially for a kid like me that was still a little too young to be hired by most places for anything better than a busboy. Further still, my fighting style continued to improve, though it was not yet perfected, and my cooking skills were already better than a good many of those "five-star" cooks. Still sloppy compared to now, but damned if I didn't show up Thom's _adult_ chefs frequently in that oversized kitchen! I was still living something of an oyster dream, at least as close as I would have figured for one when Grams had died. I'm not sure if she would have been _proud_ of what I was doing, per se, but I don't think she would have been _disappointed_, either. And it was still a long, hard fall for someone at my age. I was one of those people that thought we could just ride out the choppy waters until everything died down, because that's what most of the adults said. I was sure that I was going to rise up tall under Thom.

The evening of my last job in the Fleeholds was pegged as the worst night of my life for a very long time.

I was ordered to wait with the boat with Gauzi while his father came in with a shipment of goods. The idea was that this boat would switch with the identical boat that Torzi was making a shipment with, then he would sail around a bit with the empty ship while we stood watch--both before and after the switch--to make sure nothing went out of whack. In any case, it was supposed to be a waiting job, and the worst thing about waiting jobs was the mind-numbing _boredom_. Easy, but dull, and seems fatal to the hyperactive mind of a kid just for that, which Gauzi oh-so-eloquently commented on. "Boredom is _boring_."

I gave him a look. "And Waldo was fat and gristly. Ow! Hey!" I guarded where he just punched me in the ribs and started to laugh. "Watch it!"

Gauzi laughed, too. "Serves you right! I wonder what's taking Dad so long, anyway…"

"Twenty beli says he saw a bedroom with the curtains open," I joked.

"Shut up!" Gauzi gave another laugh and punched at me again. This time I was able to avoid it.

"Aww," I teased, "Don't you want to have a new mom?"

We kept laughing and joking while throwing punches and wrestling like children do. It stopped when Gauzi stood up without warning, looking around like something was wrong.

My brow rose. "What's up?"

"My super senses are tingling!"

"Your _what_? So you're a superhero now?" I kicked him lightly in the hip. "You read too many of those comics."

"Listen!" He looked around and went quiet, so I went quiet as well. Soon I could hear sloshing in the water, like an approaching boat.

"Maybe that's your dad with the shipment."

I was right, but perched with him were Clyde and Colden. Colden looked unusually pale, and I couldn't see Clyde's expression very well, if he did have any difference in expression. When the boat came up beside us, Gauzi meant to jump forward into the boat with his dad, but Colden shoved Torzi ahead harshly… about as harsh as he would with someone he had to "deal" with. I was about to ask what the big deal was when I saw Clyde pulling out his revolver... and pointing straight at _me_.

"We're in a lot of trouble, kids, so you're all going to have to cooperate. Torzi, you'll be driving away this boat as a decoy while we make off with the stash. _Got it?_" Colden shoved Torzi again, this time making him sprawl out on the deck of the boat. He hit the deck hard and grunted from the impact.

Gauzi ran up to his dad and threw a glare up at the large gangster. "What's the big idea?!"

"We made a mistake," Clyde said with that smooth, dark tone I heard him use before he would "bring someone out back" to never be seen again. He was behind me at that point, as I was looking down at Torzi in concern as well, but then I felt a tug back on my collar and the cold metal of Clyde's gun on my temple. Tears welled up in my eyes and my heart dropped beats like stones down my chest and up my throat. "And we're going to correct it, you understand? You _will_ drive out as a decoy, Torzi. You and your son _both_, which will throw them off since they _know_ you're not alone now. Zeff will come with us while we go off with the goods as insurance."

"W-what?!" Fear washed over me. I couldn't believe it was happening to me, but this was definitely reality. Clyde might've been a cold bastard, but it never occurred to me he would do _this_. Panic seized and I struggled and tried to get out of his grasp, getting ready to swing my leg up and kick him in the side. He responded by grasping me in a hold against him with his arm, pressing the barrel harder against my temple. I spat in anger. "Let me go, Clyde! You won't get away with it!"

"Leave Zeff out of this!" Torzi cried desperately, "He's only a child!"

Gauzi attempted to run up to my aid, but Colden was the grown-up brute compared to Gauzi's and slapped him back without trouble. Clyde didn't answer, and he wasn't leaving the topic up to debate. He pulled me back into the ship and Colden immediately started up the boat. In a second, we were flying out into the night. The pier shrank away like a deflating balloon, and soon the only thing I could see for the darkness was the water as it flew past.

Clyde finally let go of me when we had reached some distance and deposited me on the thick, packaged bricks of white powder—the shipment.

"What's the big deal!" I screeched and stood up indignantly before the pair. "Why are you doing this?! We've been faithful to you guys, and all the sudden you--!" I felt an explosion hit the boat. "Waagh! What the hell?!"

"Shit!" Clyde cursed loudly and ran to the wheel.

"That's the big deal!" Colden responded, and suddenly there were bombs raining down from everywhere, bullets buzzing past.

Everything was a whir of smoke and colors and I couldn't see. It went by so fast. The sea sizzled around us, and I called out for both of them again and again, part out of anger for their getting me in this situation, part out of concern for myself, part out of concern for _them_. They weren't able to respond to me, too busy fending off the attack and trying to evade as much as they could. It wasn't until we got out of the mist that I saw the damage done.

Colden was bleeding from a gaping hole in his side. His eyes were already looking dull and he wasn't moving.

"Colden!" I tried to run up to him, but Clyde caught me with a hand and folded me into his elbow.

"There's nothing you can do for him!"

"But...!" Tears started to come up again. I screwed my eyes shut and shook my head. "You can't just decide that, Clyde! We have to do something!"

"No! We don't!" He picked me up nearly over his head despite his thin arms. "_I_ have to. A kid like you will only get in my way!" I was thrown into a lifeboat, followed by some heavy sacks. "You shove off with the shipment! Get far away from here!" he ordered, "If they see those bricks on this boat, they'll kill us for sure, and it's better you than me, son."

"What?! You-!" I started, but Clyde wasn't in a talking mood. He cut a rope and I plummeted down. The boat landed with a splash, and I was once again thrown against the floorboards, hurting the welts all ready promised from this night of abuse. I pulled myself up and saw approaching Marines appear from the smoke—huge ships!—and they loomed behind Clyde and the fishing boat like Death Itself.

"I said get the hell out of here, you brat!" He shouted, and pulled out his gun at me.

The gun wasn't necessary. The Marine ships already scared me shitless, so my hands found the oars and I rowed away as quickly as I could from pure _fear_. I made a good distance before I dared to glance back. That moment... I saw the most challenging image of my life. I still don't know if I believe it.

The ship didn't move from its spot, and neither did Clyde. Tears streamed down his face--_Clyde's _face, that frigid, murdurous accountant who would sell his mother for a cuff-link--and he was watching me. He was _smiling_.

With a blast, the Marines fired one last bomb. Clyde, along with the boat, disappeared, swallowed in an erupting cloud of flame and smoke.


	9. Floating Oasis

Disclaimer: It be in Chapter One! Yarr!

We're going, we're going, we're going. Aaaand then my body says "wat?"  
KayΓ: Yeah, Zeff is a pretty good character; I can see a million interpretations for him that people aren't even close to interested in, too. And it's good you like my OCs… 'cause there's a lot of them.  
WhimsicalHeart: Yeah, Zeff has to be introduced into his known canon life sometime, and he's the kind of guy that would have had to be forced. And I figured I had to do something else with Waldo, and this seemed perfect. Never understood why people have rabbits for pets when they're much better meals, in my opinion. This view has caused similar fun strife over the years.

* * *

I woke up to searing bright sunlight assaulting my exposed face. I shook my head and turned, trying to escape it, thinking that the night before must have been some horrid nightmare. That Torzi's ship wasn't destroyed, that Clyde didn't sacrifice himself, that Colden was just as alive as he ever was. And I wasn't drifting out in the middle of the ocean, running from the Marines.

When I finally began to realize that I was sleeping on a fishing net and not just an uncomfortable mattress, I sat up with a start and looked around me. I was in the lifeboat, all right. I had rowed until I was too exhausted to row any more, choosing pretty much any direction except the one that would lead me to the Marines. I groaned and pulled myself up, away from where I was sleeping, to look over the side of the boat. There was water, and lots of it. Deep and wide and vast for as far as my eyes could see, only water rippled to every side of me. There wasn't a Marine in sight, but there wasn't _anything_.

I winced as my arm hit against the wooden planks. Exposure had already started branding a fierce sunburn on my skin, and I had no way of covering myself up. Wait, there were the sacks, right? I scrambled over and peered into them, intending to throw the dangerous, offending "shipment" overboard like I _should _have to begin with. But I was confused. The sacks didn't hold any bricks of white powder.

They had _tools_. One sack had Colden's favorite gun, a crowbar, some thick wads of cash, a survival knife, and a random assortment of other things. The other had Clyde's equipment, including his favorite pen-and-pad, a stiletto knife that he preferred, a more elegant revolver that I didn't see him carry except emergencies, and more money. There were only a few bullets between the two sacks, and both had the lunches that I made for them before they left that night, along with their canteens.

That's when it really hit me that last night really _wasn't_ a dream. I dropped the sacks, curled up, and sobbed for a long time. By that point, I thought I had finally grown out of being a damned crybaby, but that experience was just more than I could handle and I was still a kid. I was adrift in the middle of nowhere, no idea where I was or if Gauzi or the rest of the gang were okay, and the only people that _knew _about my situation were dead. Killed by Marines.

I eventually cried out all my tears and dully began working on survival. Searching again in the bags, I found a couple rations that they had "just in case" and combined it with their lunches, wrapping it all up in a cloth and depositing it in the stern of the little boat, making sure the bundle would stay cool and dry. I combined all the equipment from one bag to the other, then took the remaining empty bag and ripped into it, resulting in a thick, messy canvas sheet. It was far too warm for this weather, but it was big enough to cover me from the sun. I had to endure the heat if I was going to avoid the sun, so I laid myself out under the sheet, on my belly.

I took a swig from Colden's canteen to sooth my parched throat, only to gag and choke at the cheap brandy. I coughed violently, thinking that this one thing would finally kill me, be the straw that broke the camel's back, until I found Clyde's canteen and drank large gulps before I could stop myself. After some hours passed, I got hungry, so I found what I decided was the most likely to spoil first—Colden's ham sandwich—and ate half of it slowly, putting the rest away. I already decided I'd eat the second half tomorrow, and then the small slice of cake I made for Clyde after that, and then Clyde's sandwich since his oily, salty fish would last a little longer. Water would be a bigger issue, but luckily Clyde always filled his dinner-plate-sized canteen with fresh water whenever went out with it (he wouldn't drink on the job like Colden, but he did get thirsty). I wasn't too worried; I was sure someone would come and rescue me. As long as it wasn't Marines that found me, I determined, I should be fine.

.-.-.

Still drifting three weeks later, I would have _jumped _into a Marine ship if it came past. If I could still jump, that is.

I knew hunger from before that; there were a couple of times while living with Grams that I had to tighten my belt because we couldn't always afford food, and this did make me steal food a lot. But that wasn't starvation… Poverty, sure, but poverty is different. I didn't have money, and I had money now. But what use is money if, in the end, you couldn't eat it? Many times I looked over the money that Clyde and Colden had left me… enough to feed me well for months… maybe enough to buy my own freshwater lake if I wanted… but there wasn't a single place in this vast blue desert to spend it!

I found out I was a crummy fisherman despite being best friends with one, and I had no idea how to use the net that was by chance in my boat. The third fruitless try ended up in it tearing, and the seventh made me lose it to a large fish that had much more strength than I did. Only once was I lucky enough to catch one by hand, and nearly overturned the boat in doing so. But whole, raw bass never tasted so good, so it was worth the trouble.

I hallucinated a lot, because of hunger, or dehydration, or heat stroke, or just plain boredom from seeing only a blue expanse all around me. I hallucinated that I saw Grams, or Thom, or Colden and Clyde, or Gauzi and Torzi. They were all alive, well, and healthy. And we were all eating at the restaurant Grams used to work at. Sometimes I would even see the restaurant in the distance, floating atop the waves, chattering and full of patrons. I would try to steer the boat towards it, dreaming of cold water in tall glasses with clinking ice cubes, baskets of fresh, buttery rolls with warm, delicious aromas, and plate after plate of good food for everyone.

But the illusion would always fade away when my stomach cramped in pain. The final time it happened, I fell back in the boat and forced back bitter tears that I couldn't afford to shed. Then I made another futile search for crumbs in the food cloth and took a "drink" from the canteen. The water was stale, tasted of the tin it was held in, and, worst of all, wasn't enough to do more than wet my lips any more. Unsatisfied, I flung back again and looked towards the sky, not caring about exposure anymore as my skin was already tanned as dark as leather.

From all looks, I was about to die, but all I could think of was that mirage of a restaurant. My heart ached at the daydream, and so did my stomach. That I was about to die didn't bother me; but dying of hunger and thirst was the worst thing imaginable. If only that restaurant had been real! I could afford it, damnit! I could afford it so easily!

I wiped my eyes and continued looking at the blue sky. _"Wouldn't it be nice if there was a restaurant somewhere on this vast sea?"_ I muttered. It was silly and childish, but I felt like if only there was one, that everything would be all right. It was almost the only thing that made sense at the moment.

Suddenly, the world went cooler and a little darker. For a split second, I thought I was finally getting taken by Death. Then I heard some shouting, and it didn't sound like the soothing voices of loved ones... or even the tortured screams from Hell.

"Whoa… do that again!"

I blinked, thinking that those were strange words for the spirits of the afterlife to be telling me.

Then the same voice said. "There's no way you could roll that five times in a row! Those dice're rigged!"

"Are not!"

Then there was an unintelligible shout, and a flutter of objects sailed over my vision and landed in the water beside me. I sat up quick and stared without comprehension at a metal tray… some small bills, poker chips, and wooden dice were on it, though most of what must have sat on it was floating in a trail beside it leading to…

It was a passing brigantine, a bright jolly roger with a cracked skull and hammer flapping in the breeze high above, its great shadow falling over my boat. I didn't know what to make of it for several long seconds, and then I had to figure out if it was _real _or not. But I decided that it was a chance, illusion or no illusion, and even a pirate ship had to be an improvement. Hell, I would have joined the _Marines _without question for some bread and water, how much worse could _pirates _be?

"HEY!" I stood and waved my hands. "HEY! DOWN HERE!"

There was a loud _whack!_ followed by a curse. "You hear that?"

"Oh, my head. My poor, poor head! My glorious cranium!" Another voice cried. "You did that accidentally on purpose, didn't you?"

"What does that even _mean_?"

"Whaddya mean 'what does that mean'?"

A face peered over the side and looked down at me… a gruff-looking, scarred man with a bandanna to spare his bald scalp of the bright sun. "Well, lookie here! Looks like we've got us drifter, boys. I guess the dice game is over."

"Over my foot!" Shouted the other voice, and a partially toothless man joined the first face at the railing. "You're just tryin' to get out of the game 'cuz your losin'!"

"I don't play with cheaters!"

"What was that?!"

"Yeah, those dice are crooked!" Another voice shouted. "No way they could make doubles so well!"

During this argument, another person came up and began lowering a rope ladder to me. Somehow, despite my weak arms, I was able to pull myself up, though I nearly faltered at the top. The man at the ladder grabbed my arm and pulled me up the rest of the way.

"You really think I would bring a pair of crooked dice on the captain's ship?" The man lacking teeth continued. "Never in my forty-one years of life have I met a bigger moron than you."

"What'ya mean 'fourty-one'? Your thirty-four!"

"So?"

"Quiet!" A voice boomed. They stopped their argument, though it reduced to mutters. The man holding me up by the arm was the only thing keeping me from collapsing on the deck… I hadn't realized how weak I had gotten. My head was swimming so I didn't see the man that had made the order until he was right in front of me. He grabbed me by the chin and lifted it up to examine me. I couldn't see his face for the light, as he was so much taller than me that he looked like he reached the clouds in my position. But I did see he was wearing a bright yellow, ill-fitting frock of some rubber-like material. An odd, sand dollar shaped locket made of black stone sat on his huge chest, suspended by a thick iron chain. I squinted, trying to understand what I was looking at. Why was such a large man wearing a yellow dress?

"What are you, then?" The captain asked. "Just some drifter from a sunken ship, boy?"

I nodded, and tried speak, but I hardly could get my mouth open.

"And how did you come about to here?"

I managed a croak. "Marines."

"Oh? Marines sunk your ship?"

"Y-yes."

He let go of me, and I suddenly found myself on the floor with his boot pressing down on my head. "Trying to make me feel sympathy for you, eh? Just because you got sunk by Marines doesn't mean I have to feel any sort of _obligation_ to help you. What are you? Just some kid set adrift. What use could you possibly have to me? I bet that little boat of yours doesn't even have anything interesting to take."

I worked my mouth for a little while, trying to say something. "Please… I-I haven't had anything to eat or drink…"

"What was that?" He pressed down harder on my head. I cried out in pain.

"I'll do anything! Anything!" My voice was so hoarse that my screaming made me think I must be making my throat bloody. "My name is Zeff, and I'm a chef! I used to cook for Quarter Thom of the Fleeholds in Pakerville! I'll cook all your meals! I can make anything for you! Just please give me something to eat!"

A moment later, I was upright again. I don't know how I ended up that way except for the captain's grip into my hair as a clue.

"You're a good cook, are you?" he said, "Is that so?"

"Yes! I'll make you anything! Anything you want!"

"I don't believe you for a second, saying you cooked for that dead gangster."

The word 'dead' didn't register at the time. "It doesn't matter if you don't believe me! I'll prove to you how good of a cook I am!"

He hummed. "I don't know if we need a cook. We're doing just fine."

"Aww, lets get him to make some chocolate pie, Captain!" One of the men shouted in. "I haven't had that in ages. Or maybe he can make some good haunch! Or lamb! I haven't had a good meal for ages! Baydach can't cook worth shit."

The captain glared at the perpetrator and then looked to the man that was holding me before. "Do you have a needle and thread on your person? I would like to sew this idiot's lips together." I was operating under the sun-baked impression the captain enjoyed wearing yellow dresses, so the statement had me conclude he was some sort of pirate seamster. But I wasn't about to judge my saviors; couldn't be that much worse than Thom's taste in gym wear.

The man only smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, Captain. I don't carry needles on me."

He shook his head and I found myself pushed towards the portal to the decks below. "Looks like you're going to be spared, boy. Make us all something good from what there is in the kitchen and I'll let you live. Got it?"

"Y-yes," I mumbled without even thinking about it, "…C-can I eat while I cook?"

"If it'll keep you from drooling in my food while you make it. But you better be a damn good chef, you got me?"

I really would have said something cocky about my cooking skills in response—it was on the tip of my tongue—but that's where I fainted.


	10. Ne'erdowell Cads

Disclaimer: Chaapter onnne.

I have a secret! I'm not going to tell! Even to my reviewers who are contingent on flattering me.  
KayΓ: Send in the OCs! I've made so many, people are bound to be losing track soon.  
kinmik: I try pretty hard to make this match to the world that it's being written from. And I love that other people can relate to Zeff, even though he's not so explored in the series.  
WhimsicalHeart: Yes, it's a shame, but he needs to toughen up! And no, he's not done toughening, either, because the guy is tough as nails by the time we meet him.

* * *

I had to be nursed back to health, but it wasn't a big deal on their side. Captain Norvad made it abundantly clear that I would be cooking for him as compensation. He even made me sign a contract… He had weird habits like that. He was oddly legally-minded for someone whose lifestyle was strictly outlaw. But the first thing I found out that seemed important was that the yellow dress he was wearing was _not _a dress at all, but a bright oilskin sou'wester jacket that my hunger-raddled mind somehow interpreted as a frock. With his huge size, it made him look like a yellow beacon in the middle of a storm, most likely the effect he was going for.

The next thing I found out was that the Fleeholds were dissolved and their leader, Gottanno "Quarter" Thom, was killed in prison shortly after his arrest. They even showed me the paper that told the story. The article said the murderer was another inmate, but the pirates also reading it with me were clearly sarcastic and unconvinced of the report when they got to that part.

"That's how the world government is. You cross them, and they make it their business to take care of you," Baydach said, scratching his scalp under his bandana. "They'll force you on their terms, take care of you, and make it look like it was your own fault.

"Sure do. They might come after you next." Pusser said with a mostly-toothless grin, pointing his finger out towards me like a revolver. "If they think you're a problem, then Bang! You're dead! Or something like that."

I didn't really want to think of when Clyde and Colden were killed, but the comment forced it on me. Baydach saw my face fall and punched Pusser in the side. "Y'don't need to scare the kid!"

"It's not that," I said before they used it as an excuse to brawl. I figured out quickly that everyone on the ship quarreled with Pusser, and Pusser quarreled with everyone in turn, which probably came with his job of rationing. Baydach was second mate and acted like first, which only annoyed people _just enough_… it didn't make them particularly enraged because the _real _first mate, Rowlock, was generally a quiet guy that stayed out of everyone's business except when he had to get something done. In any case, there was always a reason to fight. "I'm just… Two of the other Fleehold members died from that Marine attack, and the news of Thom and the others is a lot to take."

"Oh. Oh! Sure, kid," Baydach patted my head. "Just as long as you aren't, uh, distraught or nothin'. Never had to deal with kids before. And you need to get healthy so I can quit having to cook!"

I shrugged. "It's not like I never had to deal with death before." Maybe I would have been utterly distraught by the news, but I was already recuperating from what I had endured, so all the mourning was really just another step in the process. Sure, it hurt, but so did my weakened muscles and my over-exposed skin.

Pusser and Baydach looked at each other, then gave me a weird look. "'Ey now, don't say it like that," Pusser started, "Sure you've got parents, right? Someone worryin' that took care of you?"

I shook my head, and Baydach punched Pusser again.

.-.-.

It only took a couple meals for the crew to accept me. I had some of Baydach's cooking while recuperating, so I could see why they warmed up to me so quick. But they started throwing suggestions up at me for meals in little time, and pretty soon the kitchen became my own realm, despite my youth and my rank among them. As I got healthy and strong again, I got cocky, and started to defend that realm with my kicks. Then I was one of the rowdy fighters in this pirate crew… and quite often one of the many, many people that gave Pusser hell for his rationing because, _damnit_, it interfered.

Making dinner one day, I growled at him over the stove, busy with all the meals I had to prepare but still finding enough focus to spare to be angry at him. He disregarded my glare, smiling with a draining beer bottle hanging from where teeth should be.

"Are you deaf, blind, or just stupid?" I ranted on, reaching over to a sizzling pan and nearly having my face blasted with hot steam from a teapot. "The captain wanted lemon chicken and rice! It's not going to be good quality with the kinds of ingredients you give me!"

"Aw, what are you goin' about this time, Zeff? I gave you the chicken like you asked. It's even plucked."

"This-" I held up the dead rooster, "-_bird cadaver_ you gave me is sub-par at best! And the plucking is appalling! There're broken feather pieces hanging out of it; I'll have to get the rest myself. I can't make the captain's meal out of an old rooster!"

"Zeff, you sure know some funny words. If the chicken is such a bother, then make something else."

"I can make a stew out of it, no problem, but he didn't _ask _for a stew. Give me a young hen at least! I can work with the withering lemons you gave me."

Pusser leaned back and continued drinking, flipping the beer bottle into a better drinking angle with a quirk of his jaw. "I'm sure the captain will forgive you this time."

"I'm not the one he needs to forgive!" I might've jumped up and kicked Pusser in the puss to accentuate my point, but Rowlock walked right through my trajectory so I held off. This allowed the ration-man to escape, laughing and drinking away. I frowned and pulled out a small fan instead since I needed to check on the meat I was smoking anyway.

In short time, Rowlock entered my kitchen, smiling. "Hey, Zeff, we're coming up to land soon. I'm going to go pawn off the things Pusser doesn't handle. Anything you want or would like to get rid of? Any tools you might need in here?"

"There are a few things I could list. Is it going to be within the hour? I could really use some proper ingredients." I held up the rooster again. "Look what that idiot gave me to work with!"

Rowlock dropped his bag and gave a slight laugh. "I've seen you work with worse."

"Well, sure, but the captain asked for a specific dish," I looked over at the bag that he dropped, expecting to see mostly buckles and rivets we didn't need, and had to suppress a snicker. "Hey, why is there a set of lace underwear in your things?"

"Uhhh…" Sweat instantly formed and beaded on his forehead.

"He just got dumped by his girlfriend in West Blue," Baydach said, popping his head in the window.

Rowlock went red and got defensive, which meant that it was true. He whipped around and glared at the man one step under him. "You don't have to tell him that!"

"Oh, you should have read it, Zeff!" Baydach laughed. "_'It's been so long since I've seen you, and you're in North Blue floating around like a cork on the sea'_!"

"Shut up!"

"_'I have no idea what you're doing, if you've met other women'_!" He winked, implying that Rowlock did, in fact, "meet" other women, and pressed a hand on his forehead. "_'I don't feel like doing this anymore'_." He had to duck away when Rowlock threw a plate at him.

"Nosy bastard. Reading other people's private letters." Rowlock added.

"So you're selling underwear because the girlfriend you never see broke up with you?" I pressed. Come on, it was _funny_. His only sensitive topic was his status on women.

"It was a present for her birthday, since she had been so patient with me. She held through despite the distance, despite what I might be doing." I mentally remarked, _what he actually was doing_. "And I have given her other presents and write to her near-daily, but there comes a time where a man must live on. I only add this to my many other defeats in love and continue on." What a sappy personality, huh? Then he added, with pride. "When you get rejected more than once, it really doesn't matter anymore. You become immune to the hurt, I suppose."

This time I couldn't help myself. "So immune that you'll sell her birthday present?"

He whacked me on the head. "What does a kid like you know about women!"

"Ow!" I rubbed my head. "I know plenty! I'm not _that_ young, you know."

"Whatever. Just give me a list of what you want and I'll go pick them up."

I pulled out the pen-and-pad that used to belong to Clyde, about to scribble everything I wanted down, but frowned and put it away. "Just get me a good piece of chicken for the captain's dish. I don't need anything else."

"Huh? You sure? Didn't you say you needed things?"

"It's okay. Just the chicken."

"Okay, if you insist..."

We left the port that night, even though several of the men appeared in a daze, either drunken, beat up, or with roasted heads. Pusser sprinted up the gangplank in a makeshift toga, having lost his clothes in a crooked card game, but he had over his shoulder a barrel with an unfamiliar jolly roger painted on it with the words "FOOD STUFFS", which he obviously stole. Baydach's few hairs were blackened and he had half a brow missing. The port itself was barreling up into a regular fury, and Marines were zipping about everywhere while various rogues of all sorts lost themselves in the pushing crowds. It looked like it was time to go.

"Looks like some party," I remarked, finally getting out of the kitchen after putting the final touches on the captain's dish and covering it. "What happened to your eyebrows?"

Baydach shook his head. "Pirates from another ship. When Pusser tried to stick a pair of brothers with cheating, one of them pulled out some fancy powers, like he turned into stone or something, and punched at us. Must be those devil fruit abilities."

"So, why are you burned."

"The other brother had a flamethrower. The people you meet!"

"_**All right, men!**_" Captain Norvak called out from his rumbling baritone, "_**We're setting sail immediately! All hands on deck! Get to your positions and get your wenches off our benches!**_"

The second mate (singed though he was) made a laugh and followed cries in suit, "You heard the captain! Get to it! Weigh anchor!" He ran up the railing and swung on some rope out of view.

I took my position and ran up to help release the mainsail. The winds were whipping about rather fiercely (which wasn't helping the unfortunate flaming tavern Baydach and Pusser were hustling in a moment ago), making us lurch forward instantly after it dropped. I fell backwards, as did a lot of other sailors, but we were out of there.

A cry of celebration followed. Barrels of whiskey and other drink were shortly broken into, and I got a good deal of it since, they decided, I was "old enough" to celebrate with them. Just as I was calling them to the galley to eat, Pusser slapped his acquired booty loudly, the barrel making a rather dull _**THUNK!**_ "How about we have some of this today, Zeff? You said you didn't have enough ingredients, right?"

I threw a nearby hook at him. "You're too late; I already finished dinner! So everybody get in here and eat already!"

There was another cheer and a flood of bodies while I had to struggle my way back towards my place among the food. I had to trip a few and kick some of them out of my way, and they retaliated, but everyone got to where they wanted to go, and I was honestly happier than I ever expected myself to be in such a situation. I even joined in on their inane singing this time, and I think a couple of times I did hear a bit of swing… or at least, syncopation… in the song.

_Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me…_

* * *

I didn't forget! I know I'm late! I was sick and it was Halloween! There were zombies! And cross dressers! And The Batman was a baby! I am not just making excuses!


	11. Hippopotamus

Disclaimer: Screw you, ACTA. I'm a bear. No wait, I'm not a bear. Well, screw you, regardless.

The last update was on Friday the 13th and was a screwy, long one-shot about death and torture and has nothing to do with this story whatsoever. Well, they didn't eat well, and people do die, so I guess there's that in common. The _next_ chapter of this fic is the _last_ one. There's your warning.  
WhimsicalHeart: Thank you. Yes, he's settling in. Yarr.

* * *

For a year things were like this. I was one among a crew of bastards and cut-throats, fighting along side them, sometimes fighting _with_ them, and cooking so many meals that I couldn't have counted them. Captain Norvad wasn't really the mentor as Thom or Clyde or Colden or even Balladdo had been to me, yet I felt a deep sense of respect (with a dose of fear, I won't lie) for the man and I definitely understood him as the one who ruled the ship. Every man had their part, and every man was expected to do more if necessary, fighting not being the least of them. Pusser took care of the inventory (a full job for this crew), Rowlock pragmatically worked as the right hand of the captain, Baydach boisterously directed the crew, the others each had their own specialties ranging from medicine to carpentry, and I was _the cook_.

It took very little time for me to conclude that being a pirate was the best way of life for me. I could fight all I wanted, my cooking was enjoyed and heavily requested upon, I had nearly free range on what I wanted to cook, I had a goodly sized kitchen all to myself, and I could even manage to whittle away at Pusser whenever I wanted some more ingredients. Besides, I didn't feel I could _ever _be comfortable on the other side of the law… at least, not after what happened in the Fleeholds. Too much corruption, too much bad blood.

But strange things would of course happen to us. Contrary to what we had thought, raiding the strange island town we chanced upon came up with some good loot after all. Gold, jewels, and some strange odds-and-ends that would get us some good beli with the right haggling at the pawnshop all filled our cargo hold. Pusser happily cataloged them whilst drinking his beer and laughing to himself about the profits.

"Hey! Look at this!" Pusser came up with a bundle in his arms and sat it down. When he unfolded the sparkling purple material, a small magician set was revealed. He picked up the wand and began to wave it about. "Ooo, I am The Great Pusserini, Master of Allusion!" An incoming apple core pelted him.

"That's _illusion_ you moron!" Baydach shouted with his arm still outstretched. Rowlock quietly laughed to himself.

Pusser rubbed his head. "Well then, if the dirt-sniffing peasants tied so firmly to the maternal realm are finished with their commentary, I shall continue on with the show."

Baydach fell back to where he was sitting with a snort. "'Dirt-sniffing'… that damn bastard. Just what is he trying to say, huh?"

"'Maternal realm'?" I shook my head. "If Clyde was here, he'd have Pusser tied up in an abandoned building a few days for that."

Baydach glanced down at me. "Too bad your friend's dead. Sounds like we would have gotten along."

"You would've."

"Now! Behold my awesome power!" He waved the wand over the crystal ball that inexplicably wasn't rolling off the barrel he'd placed the kit on from the rocking of the boat. The ball went foggy and he proceeded to make weird noises. "Ooo… I'm beginning to see…_ an image_…"

"As opposed to seeing a sound?" Rowlock remarked. Baydach and I snorted.

He ignored us and continued waving around like a loon. "The image is… clearing up… It is… a person…"

"Uncle Bob?!" Baydach cried out over dramatically, making us all burst into laughter.

"It's… a woman…"

Rowlock stopped laughing suddenly. "Wha? A woman."

"A princess… in a far off land… she's saying something…"

"Does she have a message for Rowlock here?" I said with a smirk. Rowlock glared at me and Baydach chuckled.

"Look! Here she approaches!" The fog in the crystal ball began to clear. Beyond belief, there did appear to be a princess inside, wearing a flowing pink dress, moving about as if lost. The three of us stopped laughing and gawked.

"I hear her!" Pusser continued, "Listen!"

A little voice called, _"I want an adventure! But nothing with bugs or the great outdoors."_

We went silent for a moment, and then saw him pull out the little princess puppet from under the material connected to the crystal ball, head back and enjoying a bursting guffaw. "Oh! I'm sorry! That wasn't a princess at all! That was Baydach in his childhood!"

The second mate, of course, then launched immediately into attack. "Why did you even _bring_ such useless things on board?! Idiot!"

They began wrestling each other, which was really inevitable by this point and Rowlock and I were already waiting for it. They were loud and rowdy, which didn't seem unusual to me until the bangs of the captain's footsteps coming up to deck stopped the argument dead. We all turned and looked rather sheepishly at Norvak, not daring to move. Baydach even still had Pusser in a choke-hold, and Pusser had stopped trying to get out of it.

"Don't you four realize your quibbling above the quarters?" He grumbled and shook his head to get the sleep out. "I'd give anything for an uninterrupted hour of sleep."

"Sorry, Captain," we said in unison.

"Ah, nevermind. Just get back to what you were doing, okay? Pusser, weren't you supposed to be looking over the goods?"

"Yes, Captain. I've been doing so. Making an inventory and everything."

"Get back to it, then. And the rest of you… continue with your own duties. If your finished, do whatever you want… _quietly_."

We nodded. "Aye, aye, Captain."

"Good." He turned and went back towards the beds, but stopped a moment. "Oh, and Zeff?"

"Captain?"

"When I wake up, I'd like some pancakes, juice, three apples, and an orange. I want my breakfast to be light so I don't have my mind on my heavy stomach sailing navigating. Got it?"

"Got it, Captain."

After he left, we finally unfolded from each other and dusted ourselves off.

"Ahh, at least Norvad isn't so cranky," Rowlock said, "It'd be hard explaining why we were in that position."

I shrugged. "Hardly see how. Happens all the time."

"I'm with Zeff, but yeah, he wasn't nasty, so we're not assigned on barnacle duty." Baydach stretched his arms and dropped them by his sides. "Hey, whatsa'bout you guys think of having a good look at that treasure, eh?"

The puppet popped up behind Baydach's shoulder. "I'll drink to that!…if I could drink, that is."

The second mate turned and started throttling Pusser again. We waited until they were finished before we went down to the cargo.

"There's a lot of weird little things," the rationman said, pointing out oddities, "Like this thing here."

"Hmm?" I looked down at a box with a small key on its side. I picked it up and turned the key a few times, then watched as it began spouting bubbles into my face, a strange minor-keyed tune tinkling away as I did. I waved them fervently out of my face while the other three laughed.

"You really are a bastard," I complained at Pusser before putting the music box back where I found it. "Why didn't you warn me it was going to spit bubbles into my face?"

"Because it's much more fun to see you get humiliated, you child chef. Right, guys?"

Baydach nodded, still chuckling, while Rowlock just smiled and turned away to look at something else.

"Ehh? What is _this_ thing?"

Pusser grinned wide. "Nice, isn't it?"

"Is that… a golden hippo?"

I came to look and what Rowlock was talking bout was, indeed, a life-sized, solid gold hippo. It sat back like a Buddha, its great, broad mouth grinning as if watching upon a happy, calm moment.

"Amazing!" I said, and then ran up to it, jumping over other baubles to get there, "This thing must be worth a king's ransom!"

"Sure is. Nice workmanship, too, but if there's no market for golden hippos, then we can just have it melted down."

"Hey! Rowlock!" A voice called on deck. "Come out here, will ya'? I need you to see something through the telescope!"

"Ah, looks like we have to cut this viewing short," the first mate said with a shrug and a smile, "Duty calls."

.-.-.

The storm we had accidentally sailed into seemed to come out of nowhere. So the waves were already causing us a good deal of trouble before we came across the pirate cutter. Norvad bellowed orders with as full a voice he could muster, directing every man with broad gestures and pointing, very much standing out in the weather-created darkness and blur with his yellow sou'wester jacket. We did the best we could in the unexpected fight, but the damn ship was just _too slow_. It wouldn't turn like we wanted to, and it dipped too heavily into the sea after being thrown up by the waves.

They were better off in that cutter than we were, even though their ship was being tossed around much more. They were at least able to maneuver properly, and they used that to their advantage. They even managed to get close enough to have a few of their members board us.

"_Kisama!_" I shouted curses and kicked away my opponents, landing with a lurching slide as to not fall over. I sensed another enemy coming up from behind and dropped into a handstand, delivering a kick to his ribs, "_**Côtelette--**_" then used the momentum to spin and deliver another fast kick to his lower back, "**—**_**Sélle!**_" The others in the ship thought my choices of attack names were strange, but I didn't care; I liked boasting that I was tenderizing the meat of my opponents, and calling out the culinary names of the meat that I was hitting amused me in reference to that joke.

I was done with my side of invaders, and I turned just in time to see Baydach turn about and shoot a landing enemy from his brief perch on the rails. He dramatically blew at the smoke from his overly decorated antique flintlock and looked over at me. "Oi! You done over there?"

"Yeah!"

"Good! I think they're retreating!" He looked about while Rowlock calmly came swinging through between us before landing on a yardarm. "Nice timing, too. He always wrecks up the place with his using the ship as a weapon. Less repairs."

"Where's the captain?" I called, approaching and looking around. He'd been out of my sight during my own battles. The cry of a man being thrown into the sea like an empty box was what clued me. He was a bear of a man so he often could do with just tossing people around like light, cotton-filled dummies. "Nevermind, he's still by the bow."

We resumed watching for the opponents, but the cutter was obscured by rainfall, and we didn't have time to do a better scan. The ship shook with a bang and we were all thrown to the side. We heard a loud creak and the boat began tilting "What was that?!" Norvad demanded of his first mate, who had just swung down by his side.

Rowlock shook his head. "For once, I can honestly say that I had nothing to do with this."

The captain threw his head about. "Damn! Those bastards escaped! There's nothing else we can do then… Set towards that sandbank for an emergency weigh anchor! We need to see the damage!"

The lonely bank could hardly count as an island, sand held up by stones and coral, only a few hundred yards wide and still mostly underwater, but we were lucky to have been by anything; the ship was in terrible shape and was already sinking from massive damage to the hull. It was hard to tell how bad the damage was since we parked on that side, but it looked like we most likely hit against an undersea boulder. Everyone took orders to examine the ship and plug holes or call the shipwright to try to prevent as much water damage as possible. I went to look in the kitchen.

I could hear Baydach scream through the floors without problem. "IT'S GONE!"

Everyone turned silent.

"THE GOLDEN HIPPO! IT'S MISSING! WE LOST IT!"

The silence exploded into shouts and cries of "WHAT?!" and there was a storm of steps coming into the ship towards the cargo hold.

Pusser's voice was forced high by his disbelief. "What do you mean you lost it? You can't lose it! It's as big as an elephant!"

"It was as big as a _hippo_ you _idiot!_ And you can see for yourself!"

I might have come out, too, because I couldn't possibly resist gawking and wondering how we lost such a great haul in different circumstances. As it was, I had just opened the pantry to check. The blood ran out of my face. _**"GUYS! GET IN HERE QUICK!"**_

A few seconds later, Rowlock had managed to burst in with a few men behind him. "What is it, Zeff? Did you find the hippopotamus?"

"_Forget_ the goddamn hippo! _**All of our food is gone!**_"

* * *

Kisama – It's just a very nasty way of saying "YOU!"  
Côtelette – French for "Rib Meat" (the name of the attack).  
Sélle – French for "Back Meat" (once again, the name of the attack).


	12. Half Cadence

Disclaimer: Go see chapter one!

Okay, here is the last chapter of All Blue!  
kinmik: Thank you very much. I have Zeff stepping through stages of his life to get where he is now, and I'm glad that this is noticed and appreciated.  
WhimsicalHeart: It's fun trying to figure out how to fit in all this junk. And some pirates hit hard and fast, especially the ones that come from the Grand Line, amirite?

* * *

"It all comes down to this, eh?"

Pusser grunted in acknowledgment. We sat facing each other on the floor with the last of the food that we managed to scrounge up, mostly fruits and nuts that managed to get out of their original barrels and roll away into nooks and crannies. In ideal conditions, this would be enough for one of these men for one day. This would have to last every crew member until we found a way off this damned sand-rock.

It wasn't the first time for anybody; the very reason Norvad kept a disagreeable guy like Pusser on his ship was because he was good at his job of rationing. Usually, that meant booze and tobacco, because those little addictive things men use to unwind are just as important as keeping the pantry—sometimes more. But he also had to take care of food, to make sure we didn't run out before we could find a port again. He wasn't likable, but a rationman isn't _supposed_ to be likable; he's supposed to do his _job_.

I insisted in helping him manage. He and Norvad agreed to this… more to ensure that there was another fighter protecting the food than my intention of actually plotting a nutritional system to stretch out the food as much as we could. We would take shifts to keep the men from sneaking in. Others would be forced to either stroke the large signal fire we built, fish from the ocean, or stay _completely still_.

Pusser knocked his bamboo sword against his shoulder. It looked weird for him to carry such a thing, but he wouldn't carry a lethal weapon while he defended the food against his own nakama. "I take day shift, you take night. Captain says night fall is when we eat. Since you need the most energy to manage food, cook, and defend, you're the only one that'll eat more. I can be allowed a little bit, but even the captain isn't to have bigger portions. He will get crazy from not eating proper in a couple weeks. Always does. Might have to fight him later."

"I'll try to be quick about it if that happens," I said soberly, though the thought really was _terrifying_, "If we can't bring the Captain down in a couple hits, he might actually kill us."

"Right. With the others, watch the young ones first. They always get it in their heads they can sneak something and get away with it. The old ones will hold off until their brains shrivel up... _then_ they'll be a worry."

"You're good at this, Pusser. You must love your job."

"The only thing I hate more than my job is my mother, kid."

.-.-.

The days passed slowly. There was a lot of debate on how the enemy pirates managed to steal the life-sized, solid gold hippopotamus, as well as manage to make off with all of our food, without our noticing.

"I think one of them had to have eaten one of those devils," Pusser declared from his post at the pantry. I was awake but leaning back with my arms crossed behind my head.

Rowlock looked at him. "Ate a devil?"

"You know, gives you powers but makes you a hammer that can't swim."

"Those are called devil _fruits!_" Baydach hissed.

Norvad nodded. "The devil fruits are very valuable because of their powers. When I was in the Grand Line, I saw many people with such powers. They're a dime a dozen there, but they come out and take advantage of the fact that the other four seas don't have as many people who can deal with them."

"What gives you the idea one of them had devil fruit powers, Pusser?" Rowlock pressed.

"That big guy with the mustache just did a bunch of weird things, you know? He'd hold out his hands and suddenly the waves'd rumble. Like he was directing the devil in his stomach."

"They're devil_ fruits!_ Not devils! Get it right!"

Pusser looked unconvinced. "I still think my explanation makes more sense."

The second-mate glared. "Sometimes I wish I could crack that skull of yours and see what's inside. If I'm lucky, I'll find a brain."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," a younger crewman beside me sneered, getting up. He was looking for a brawl.

"Oi, oi!" I kicked the kid in his shins and he fell back down on his face. "Don't go making unnecessary fights. You'll just waste energy."

He got up off his face and bared his teeth at me. "I don't need to hear something like that from a kid like you! Just because you guard the food, too!"

"Kid or not, I'm the cook on this ship. Whatever straights we're in, you should show me respect if you want to live, got it? And…" I lowered my leg with an intimidating stomp of the heel on the wooden deck. "If I hear one more word out of you, I swear I'll do something drastic, and you won't like it."

He seemed to want to start something, but he spat to the side with a mutter and turned around.

.-.-.

A foreboding wind howled harshly in my ears, so I went to the cargo hold again, trying to find something—_anything_—that was remotely edible. Weeks had passed and by this point I should have known better, but I had trouble forcing myself to keep still when there was always a part of my mind nagging that there _might _be something that I missed in that barrel or under that bag. I knelt and looked though some boxes I had checked already but convinced myself could have a morsel under the treasure.

There, Baydach tried to jump me.

Baydach was my superior, by rank, strength, and experience. Healthy, he could beat me twelve times to next Tuesday without breaking a sweat. But there was a difference from my larger ration. I swung up a leg before I even saw him out of pure instinct, hooked my toe under his chin, and threw him into a rare and oversized porcelain doll. The doll shattered into a million pieces that mauled its cotton-stuffed torso.

When I realized what happened, I ran up to his side. "Baydach! Are you okay?"

He cringed and gripped his face with a shaky hand to hide it. Bitter tears streamed down. "I can't take it any more! Raw fish, charred fish, roasted fish… that's all we get and only so much! I _know _if you had more you'd give it to us, but we're at the end of our rope, Zeff! Captain, too!"

I tried examining him. His wounds weren't bad, but his body was dangerously malnourished. I wondered if he really did even eat _fish _anymore. He caught fish, he worked on fixing that hole even though the ship would _never _be seaworthy again. He sure as hell wasn't saving his energy like he was supposed to. "There's only so much I can do! I wish this shitty little island at least had a fruit tree or something!" Hell, Rowlock was coming down with scurvy, but wouldn't utter a word about it to the rest of us, even though we all knew.

Baydach moaned. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He didn't look well. I rose to get the doctor of the ship, but his hand caught my arm. He was so weak I could have kept walking and pulled out of his grasp without noticing, but I stopped.

"Zeff, you know there was a crown on top of that hippo?"

"Baydach, drop the stupid gold hippo! You need _help!_"

"I hid the crown in my room. Didn't trust Pusser. He must've thought the enemy stole it, but they didn't. It's worth more than the hippo; rubies nice enough for a _Tenryuubito_ woman. Give it to the captain for me."

"If it's so damn valuable, do it yourself! You're second mate, aren't you? I don't carry the money! What use is money?! We need food and there aren't restaurants in the middle of the ocean!"

"Oh, don't worry. I won't mind if it's you." His next breath was heavier than it should've been. "You're young, but you grew up fast. You'd make a good replacement."

"R-replacement...?"

He laughed. It didn't sound like a laugh should sound. "You've got a lot of fire in you. You take care of that, huh? You're a better cook than me... you'll be a better second mate."

"STOP TALKING LIKE YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE, OKAY! YOU'RE GOING TO BE FINE!"

"I... finished barring up the hole. Just in time… Rowland said a storm's gonna surge…"

_Those _were that bastard's last words. Can you believe it? The idiot died of a combination of exhaustion and hunger. I rubbed my eyes in my sleeve hard as if I could scrub the humiliation away and sprinted out the hold, cursing his name. I had to tell the captain and the rest of the crew what happened to him. He was our nakama, after all. But I didn't have a chance.

First thing I saw when I ran out was Pusser weakly trying to defend himself against the rampaging Captain Norvad. If it wasn't one thing!

The captain hardly looked conscious in his assault, just growling as his saliva ran down his bearded chin, his eyes as unfocused as the eyes of a corpse. Pusser was trying his best to hold him back. Dark clouds rolled above us with an angry rumble. The other men only sat and watched, some in fear, some with righteous smirks, and some with dull confusion like they didn't even know where they were. There wasn't a one of them that could get up and affect the fight either way, either too weak or too conflicted. Pusser was thrown into the railings and into the cannons more often than a body like his should have been able to handle. He hit boxes and walls and was already bloodied and bruised with more than a few stains of blood showing where he had been tossed.

Somehow, he managed to look around and catch my eyes. "Zeff! Help me out here!"

I didn't want to. Baydach just died after I threw him into a doll; I didn't want to fight the captain after that. Fortunately, I had a better sense of survival to me than I did honor, and I did what I had to do. I ran across the deck, launched myself in the air, and threw a strong kick into the captain's temple. His large frame flew to the side and into a stack of emptied barrels. I prayed that would be enough.

He got back up and roared like a beast at me.

Damn.

I needed a one-hit K.O. but there weren't any attacks I had that much confidence in against him. There was that "ultimate attack" that Balladdo had been so proud of, but... I hadn't tried out my latest idea for it yet. It was still in development.

So I tried it out there. I dug my heel into the deck and spun. At first I wasn't sure what I was going to get out of it, but as I felt the temperature rise in my leg hotter and hotter until it was near unbearable, I regained some hope. The captain loomed over me and I jumped higher than I expected I ever could, stomped down in the middle of his forehead, then used the momentum to spin and follow up with a hook under his jaw. This time, he fell and stayed down.

There was silence. I looked for Rowlock and saw that he was looking up at the clouds. "Rowlock! What are the orders!"

He looked at me and shook his head. "It's all over, Zeff. That-" He pointed in the distance at a bright line in the sky. "Is the eye from the wind surge and pressure surge clashing against each other. Under it a wave is forming and the wind surge has it coming right for us. It's the biggest wave I've ever seen and it's still growing. We'll be swallowed whole by the ocean."

I wanted to scream and cry in frustration and rage. Too many things were happening at once, and there was no way I could handle it all just to surrender. "No way! Not after Baydach died patching up the stupid hull! Can't we, I don't know, get _on top _of the wave?"

"Huh? He patched it up?" Rowlock looked confused. "Well... I guess it's possible... but it's not like the ship could sail up there. We'd be at the mercy of the waves."

"Then do that! It's better than dying!" I turned to the others. "Get up!"

They just stared at me, still in a mix of confusion and fear.

"I SAID GET UP YOU LAZY BASTARDS! OR DO YOU WANT TO DIE IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?!" I jumped down and began pulling them on their feet, shoving them into the direction of where they needed to be. Soon enough they were moving for themselves, weakly but in order to save their own lives. We managed with some difficulty and many loudly groaning planks to get far enough out into the ocean.

The surge came, and suddenly we were riding on top of the waves as if the boat was a giant, oddly shaped surfboard. We were eighty feet above sea level and moving more knots than the ship ever did before. I shouted at the others to work and ran about, being the only one left with any strength to them. Rowlock, who knew the ship best, managed to slam into the arms and swing the sails when necessary to keep the boat upright, too busy himself to shout orders even though he was technically the leader. I shouted and screamed orders, and soon was just shouting and screaming nonsense, and the rush of air and water going past us thrummed my adrenaline all the way up to excitement, and despite the fear, there was a euphoria there. That we would survive.

When we wrecked, exhausted, on the beach of a well-inhabited, civilized island by luck. The ship was destroyed, we were exhausted, but, damnit, we were alive. We cheered and laughed weakly and pulled ourselves together.

.-.-.

Afterwards in an inn, I told the captain what happened, then apologized for knocking him out and getting ahead of my position.

Norvad laughed heartily, bandaged and eating a large plate of food. "I don't think I would've had it any other way." He said, "Rowlock got his position because he's competent, not because he's a good leader. That's what Baydach was for." His laugh died softly and he smiled somberly. "I'll miss him. And the ship."

I tried to say we can get a new ship, a better ship, and pointed to the crown, but he shook his head.

"I'm getting too old for this, Zeff. We're hocking that thing and splitting up the pool, then going our separate ways."

"What? But Captain...!"

"I ain't your captain anymore, and you ain't my cook. I'm going to retire with my portion and find a nice place by the sea. But you're young yet. You have your own dream, don't you?"

Of course I did. It was called _All Blue_. Was it childish for a pirate chef to look for something like that? Was there anybody _but _a pirate chef who could look for something like that?

The total from the sold booty was lower than it should have been from laundering and from paying damages for crashing our ship into the island's beach, but it was still a decent sum as any. We stayed there a while as well before eventually drifting apart to our own ventures. Soon, I got a small but respectable cutter, managed to crew it up, and I stocked up to my first voyage as a captain _and_ chef. It wasn't going to be my last crew as captain, and there would still be some ships in the future that I wasn't one.

The last person still on the island when I left was Rowlock, who actually managed to keep a girl there, marry her, and got her pregnant. He saw me off with a present: a cookbook from the Grand Line and a record of Felíche de la Rennace.

I looked at him in shock. "How'd you know I liked..."

"You do everything in her ragtime." He laughed. "_I'm a moody person. Look at me switch from joy to misery._"

I frowned. "Very clever."

"I have to be clever; I'm going to be a father soon. G'luck finding your sea."

"Thanks." I do everything in ragtime. _Fucking smartass_.


	13. Epilogue: Second Course Coda

Disclaimer: I lied. It's in chapter one.

And then… SUDDENLY… AN EPILOGUE! This was meant to be a tiebreaker for the contest, but I lost before I even had a chance to see the outline because of Internet issues. I'm still using the outline but ignoring the word count, and I've rewritten all the previous chapters to be a little longer and generally more tightly edited. So, enjoy!

* * *

How many years have passed since then? How many ships have I had and lost, nakama that I've had by my side and left? The years are long and an old man's mustaches get long with them. I might have been a captain for a while, but there had been times I was forced to be a cabin boy again to other ships. I traveled through every status of pirate one can imagine while still being a chef in each and every crew I was in.

I got to the point where I felt I had enough strength to go into the Grand Line myself. I was reaching the age where most men had settled down with a wife, bought a cradle and hired a midwife, and lived their lives out in a little shack on land, and indeed saw many men go down that path if the seas didn't claim their bodies first. I couldn't really see myself settling down—as nice as some women are—before I found the All Blue, and I had an inkling I'd be too over-the-hill to try after I either succeeded or gave up my ambition. And the sea tried more than once to claim my life. A pirate or a Marine was no problem for me; I was Red Leg Zeff, after all. But when I had gotten stranded by the elements without food or water… so many times… so many times I wished…

But I had the money and the clout to have a respectable crew, so I did just that. I was captain and chef again, and I took to the Grand Line in hopes that I could find that great sea. My crewmen, good fighters and sailors though they were, and easy to get along with (once you know them), didn't know where my ambitions lie, assumed it had to do with the One Piece, for Gold Roger had died by that point, and jumped on board with visions of gold and jewels in their heads.

We didn't succeed in anything except making our names that much more notorious. They didn't get One Piece, even while they did manage to plunder many ships and villages, and I didn't get to that sea I had so longed to find. It crushed my heart a little, I think. Even while I left the Grand Line with a stance of victory for surviving, I felt old with a little of my life wasted. Had I really succeeded in anything I'd wanted?

"Doing this sort of work…" Brumley growled from where he kneeled on the deck. He threw his cloth into the bucket of soapy, dirty water he'd been cleaning with and leaned back, intending to rest his head on a coil of hemp rope. He met with my foot instead.

"Don't you start slacking off on me," I growled, "Just because we're out of the Grand Line doesn't mean you can shirk your duties!"

"But I'm first mate now, right?" Brumley complained, rubbing his black-whiskered chin and peering at me with the childish eyes that said "I don't wanna…", "Shouldn't swabbing the deck go to someone else?"

"When you become king, then you tell me that you don't want to clean up." I lightly nudged him back to sitting up with that foot, implying with a quirk in the gesture that I could have punted his head like a football if I wanted instead. "But for now, you'll scrub till your hands become raw!"

He frowned and leaned forward to retrieve his cloth. "Aye aye, captain."

"And change that water! What use is it cleaning the deck if the water you use is filthy!"

"I know, I know!"

There was a blow of a whistle, and my attention was brought on a passing ship with a different Jolly Roger. We were being hailed. I knew the ship, and I knew that they weren't going to attack us. I gave the motion to pull up along side.

The captain looked over at me with a smug grin on her butterface. "If it isn't the man who fell for me but dumped me for the Grand Line. It's been a while, Zeff."

"I didn't fall for you. I just had a mild infatuation which had me bashing my head against my desk later on." I gave a shrug, but those _weren't_ pleasant memories. "Anyway, you seem to be healthy, Catarina."

"That's 'New Moon Hunter' to you, Red Leg. I'll be going to the Grand Line myself, soon. You have any tips for me?"

"Yeah. Don't ram your ship into anything. Is that all you hailed me over for?"

"You make me tired," she said with a sigh, "Can't I talk to my dear old Zeff after his long haul through the most dangerous ocean in the world?"

"The feeling is mutual… on the tired part anyway." I turned to my men. "Who do I have to butter up to get some coffee around here?" A slight nostalgic pain hit—something about what I had just said reminded me of a burly gangster from my youth—and I laughed. "On second thought, nevermind. None of you can make a decent cup, even though I always tell you how to do it _right_."

"You're still offensive to everyone, I see," she mused.

"Once again, _mutual_," I shot back.

"Hey captain!" I heard a shout from the crow's-nest. "I see a cruise ship coming up!"

I shrugged and looked at Catarina. "You mind…?"

"No, no. Go ahead and take them." She turned away. "Consider it our your homecoming present from us to let you take them yourselves. Besides, there's a storm on the horizon."

She went along her way, so I took my position at the helm and crossed my arms. _"Get to the cruise ship!"_

"Aye, aye, sir!"

The occupation went quick. It was really surprising how much a little trip through the Grand Line will make people just roll over and play opossum.

"Red Leg Zeff? What do you want from us?"

_"Take over! Take all the treasure!"_

Swords flashed. Women screamed. Gold glittered.

"Captain," Brumley said back to me, "We need to hurry before the storm hits us!"

"I know."

But even still, some of my men lacked discipline. I even had to beat up Elkins when he tried to steal their food, even though they should've had enough table manners from sailing with me by now to know better. But still, it was easy. It was the same old motive.

"What are you doing, you little brat?!"

Now _that_ old phrase was nostalgic to hear.

"Hey kid, it's dangerous to play with knives. See? I'm bleeding now."

"SHUT UP!"

"No, Sanji! Don't fight them!"

"Kid! Don't annoy them!"

"Do something! He's a member of your crew!"

"Sanji! Step aside! Step aside!"

Children really don't have any manners these days. I turned to him. _"Kid! Do you want to die? I'll help you!"_

"Who wants to die? You'll kill us anyway, right?" He had two cutting knives that I'd never let leave the kitchen even in a desperate situation like this, but he was just a kid and didn't know any better. "So I better kill you first!"

Just a stupid kid. Like those ones I so easily took care of on a hundred ships before this. Like those ones I had to kick out of the way when they futilely tried to protect their fathers from getting the thrashing for not paying up Thom. So I kicked him away, just like one of those kids and knew he wouldn't get up to bother me again. The knife flew in the air, and he was thrown into the nearest pile wooden box that broke from the hit.

"Sanji!"

"He beat that kid up!"

"He has no mercy at all!"

_Of course I don't have any mercy. I'm a pirate._

I didn't expect another motion at my feet. The kid had managed to get up enough to literally bite my ankles. _A persistent little insect…_

"I have a dream! …One day, I will find All Blue!"

_"Wait, what? What did you just say?"_

I thought I had spoken, but it seems I was silent because everyone was still talking around me like I hadn't. I don't think the expression on my face had even changed. Just how long have I been a hardened pirate, anyway?

My men burst into laughter. "All Blue? What a stupid dream!"

"Why don't you tell him, Captain! Even in the Grand Line there's no such place!"

They were right. And this kid needed to learn a little bit about life, so I kicked him again. Though the hostages gasped, they didn't scream for his name anymore. Kid should have realized he was alone by this point.

But still flat on his back, he continued to rebel. "I won't allow a cold-blooded pirate like you kill me in a place like this!"

Weird, why did this kid seem familiar to me? I never met him before.

"Let's go, Captain!" Brumley called me out of my daze, "The storm is coming faster than we thought!"

_"Okay. Bring all the treasure to our ship."_

Just like Brumley warned, the sea surged at us, and it swept up across the cruise deck. This was getting really bad. At this rate, our ships wouldn't—"SANJI!"

"Eh?!"

"Captain?!"

My reflexes are quick and my legs are strong. The mast went down with only one hit and fell. I grabbed it as I dived towards the ocean and cursed, ready to take the torrent of waves head-on. "Stupid brat!"

I heard Brumley's and everyone else's voices behind me. "Captain?! Why are you helping that kid?!"

_The hell if I know._

"CAPTAIN!"

Waves crashed around me. A tide taller than both ships combined swept up. So many memories. Everything hasn't all passed just yet, has it? The song isn't over, yet.

The ragtime just looped back around to a different soloist.


End file.
